Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE

Primary Schools, Aden

Mr. Marten: asked the Secretary of State for Air what proposals he has for increasing the Royal Air Force primary schools in Aden.

The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Hugh Fraser): We shall provide 360 additional primary places early next year by converting existing buildings, and a similar number in new permanent accommodation by August, 1964.

Mr. Marten: I am sure that the House will be very grateful to know of that proposed increase, but can my right hon. Friend tell us what teacher-pupil ratio that will give us?

Mr. Fraser: I will write to my hon. Friend on that point, but I think that at the moment it is quite satisfactory.

Voluntary Service Overseas (Free Passages)

Mr. Marten: asked the Secretary of State for Air how many free passages on Royal Air Force aircraft have been provided for the Voluntary Service Overseas organisation in the last 12 months.

Mr. H. Fraser: In the year ending October, 1962, 18 members of this organisation were carried in spare seats in Royal Air Force aircraft. Small charges were made for food and accommodation provided en route.

Mr. Marten: I am sure that we are very grateful for what the Royal Air Force is doing for this splendid organisation,

but would my right hon. Friend urge his colleagues in the Government to do as good a job as the Royal Air Force is doing and transport these people overseas wherever they can?

Mr. Fraser: I am very flattered by what my hon. Friend has said.

Education Branch (Specialist Teacher Scheme)

Mr. E. Johnson: asked the Secretary of State for Air in what subjects appointments to the Specialist Teacher Scheme in the education branch of the Royal Air Force are now being made; and whether he will consider extending the scheme to include arts graduates.

Mr. H. Fraser: The current subjects are mathematics, physics, aerodynamics, thermodynamics, electronics, and electrical, mechanical and control engineering. The possibility of extending the scheme to arts subjects is being considered.

Mr. Johnson: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he can indicate when he is likely to be able to announce his plans for the arts graduates?

Mr. Fraser: The next meeting of our advisory council is in January, and the question will be considered by it then.

Blue Steel Missiles

Mr. Mason: asked the Secretary of State for Air how many test Blue Steel missiles have been introduced into the Royal Air Force; when the completed missile is expected to be ready, and at what estimated cost; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. H. Fraser: The introduction of operational Blue Steel missiles into the Royal Air Force has begun. It would not be in the public interest to quote numbers or production costs.

Mr. Mason: May I take it from the right hon. Gentleman's reply that the perfected missile is now being introduced into the Royal Air Force? Secondly, is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is some concern about the cost of the project? According to the Auditor-General's report in September, 1960, it had already cost £60 million. As


the missile is now going into production and being introduced into the Royal Air Force, would the right hon. Gentleman care to inform the House what the total cost has been—which is probably nearer £100 million?

Mr. Fraser: As I have said, these are operational missiles which are going into the Royal Air Force. As to the cost, I think it is appreciated that in this House we do not reveal production costs—though research and development costs are occasionally revealed—for the hon. Gentleman will recognise that that is one of the quickest ways in which to give information to one's military opponents.

Mr. Mulley: Although there may be difficulties about the details of production costs, surely the House will be told at some time what the whole cost of the programme has been?

Mr. Fraser: Over a period of years.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to give the House and the people who have to find this money some approximate idea of the cost? Is there not a possibility that the enemy will know it before the House of Commons does?

Mr. Fraser: No, Sir. I have to look after the interests of both the House and the taxpayers, and I think that it is best done this way.

Skybolt Missiles

Mr. Mulley: asked the Secretary of State for Air when he expects delivery of the Skybolt missiles; what is the estimated cost; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. H. Fraser: We expect the missiles to be delivered in the mid 'sixties. I can assure the House that the introduction of Skybolt will not bring the cost of our whole deterrent above the present approximate 10 per cent. of our defence budget.

Mr. Mulley: Can the right hon. Gentleman be quite categorical about this project going through? In certain quarters in the United States there is opposition to the completion of the Skybolt project. Is he certain that the missiles will be delivered? Can he indicate the cost to date? What commitments

have we made as to the cost of development so far?

Mr. Fraser: The cost to date has largely been borne by the United States Government, and I think figures have been published by them. The hon. Gentleman asks for our costs, but to give them would reveal the number of missiles we have on order and I do not, quite rightly, propose to give these figures. Every major development is always the subject of speculation, and I see that there is speculation on Skybolt in today's Press. But Her Majesty's Government are quite resolved that this programme shall go through.

Mr. Eden: What progress is being made on the development of Skybolt? Can my right hon. Friend assure us that he is making it well known in the United States Departments which matter that we attach the greatest importance to the ultimate receipt of this weapon after it has been developed?

Mr. Fraser: The latest reports on development from the Douglas Aircraft Company are satisfactory. It is well known to the American Administration, as it is to this House, that we attach major importance to the continuation of the programme.

Mr. Lubbock: If the right hon. Gentleman says that, as a result of the introduction of Skybolt, the cost of our deterrent will remain at 10 per cent. of our defence budget, does that not mean that the budget is going to rise?

Mr. Fraser: I said that it will remain within the 10 per cent.

Mr. Mason: The right hon. Gentleman has emphasised that continuation of the so-called independent British nuclear deterrent depends upon Sky-bolt. There is, however, some concern as to whether this project will be completed or not. Is he satisfied that the American Government will go ahead with Skybolt?

Mr. Fraser: I am not responsible for the American Government's policy, but neither Her Majesty's Government nor the American Government have announced a change of policy. It remains our policy to push forward the development of Skybolt.

Mr. P. Williams: Does that mean that, subject to Skybolt being effectively developed in the military sense, the political commitment of the American Government is irrevocable and that we will politically be able to get this weapon?

Mr. Fraser: My hon. Friend is going very wide of the question.

Transport Aircraft (OR 351)

Mr. Mulley: asked the Secretary of State for Air when he expects to make a decision on OR 351 for transport aircraft.

Mr. H. Fraser: I have nothing to add to my statement on 23rd November or to what my right hon. Friend, the Minister of Aviation told the House on the 26th.

Mr. Mulley: It is now about two years since the OR 351 was specified. There is great concern, both in the aircraft industry and outside it, about the delay in providing the Royal Air Force with adequate transport aircraft. Having regard to the enormous time which it takes from the word "go" to the actual delivery of an aircraft into service, has the delay been in the Air Ministry, or the Ministry of Aviation, or the Treasury or where? Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that he has a clear conscience on this matter?

Mr. Fraser: Yes, Sir. I have a clear conscience on this matter. No one is keener than I to get a decision, but there are various factors which have to be taken into account. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation said the other day, it is hoped to be able to say something in the New Year about this project.

Mr. McMaster: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the delay could be reduced and the cost kept to a minimum by ordering a derivative of the Belfast for this purpose?

Mr. Fraser: I realise that that view is strongly held in Northern Ireland.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Is it the case that the specification for this aircraft is so complicated that it may well be many years before the Royal Air Force gets it, if it decides to order it at all? If orders

were placed next year, when would deliveries take place?

Mr. Fraser: That is a difficult point. Since I took office I have ensured that the specification has been made as simple as possible, considering the requirements.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROADS

Cattle-Crossing Signs, Longdon

Mr. Snow: asked the Minister of Transport why cattle-crossing signs at Longdon, Staffordshire, have not yet been authorised by his Department, in view of the recommendations made to him by public authorities in the area; whether he is aware of the danger both to drovers and cattle crossing the Lichfield-Rugeley main road; and if he will investigate this delay.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): The signs were authorised on 6th November and erected on 9th November.

Mr. Snow: That is quite creditable, but why was there such a delay after the recommendation of the Staffordshire Constabulary?

Mr. Hay: It was mainly due to sickness and pressure of more important work in the office of our divisional road engineer.

M.5 Road (Claims by Landowners)

Mr. Dance: asked the Minister of Transport what progress he is making with his consultations with the Worcestershire County Council to speed up the settlement of claims by landowners for damage which they claim to have suffered during the construction of M.5.

Mr. Hay: Assembly of all the material information has been difficult, but over 30 items of claim have been examined. Subject to legal confirmation, I think it probable that my right hon. Friend is liable in respect of seven items, and we hope to write shortly to the claimants about them. Payment of one other claim has been approved. We consider the contractors alone to be liable for about half the items and we are pressing them to settle these. Further information is required, and has been asked for, in 11 cases. The remaining items, which are complex and difficult, are under investigation.

Mr. Dance: I thank my hon. Friend for that very full reply. Is he aware that there is a great deal of irritation among the people concerned in my constituency? Can he evolve some scheme for the future so that when new motorways are built this sort of irritation does not occur and compensation is paid much more quickly than at present?

Mr. Hay: Much of the trouble in this case arose over the dilatory way in which the contractor dealt with the claims. To my knowledge, it has not happened before and I hope that it will not happen again.

M.5-Ross Spur Junction (Service Area)

Mr. Dance: asked the Minister of Transport when a service area will be provided on the Lydiate Ash-Ross Spur section of the M.5.

Mr. Hay: A service area is already in operation at Strensham, about half a mile north of the junction of M.5 with the Ross Spur. Filling stations and one transport cafe opened when the motorway opened in July. All facilities have been available since 18th September.

East London (Traffic Congestion)

Mr. Channon: asked the Minister of Transport what proposals he has for easing traffic congestion in East London and for improving the exits by road from London to the east coast.

Mr. Hay: Our proposals for improving the exits by road from London to the east were described in my letter of 23rd August to my hon. Friend. We have a number of schemes for helping traffic in East London. But because of the amount of detail, I propose to send the particulars to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Channon: While I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for that promise, may I ask him to remember that although many exits from London have been greatly improved in the last few years, including those to Henley, the exit to the east still remains among the worst? May I express the hope that his colleagues will do something to speed this up?

Mr. Hay: Having regard to my hon. Friend's majority, I think that he is less likely to exit than I am.

Mr. Strauss: In view of the very serious congestion in this part of London, probably the worst in the London area, is the Parliamentary Secretary giving priority to the solution of this problem?

Mr. Hay: I think that I had better send the right hon. Gentleman a copy of the particulars which I am sending to my hon. Friend.

Panda Crossing, Swanley (Accident)

Mr. Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Transport what conclusions he has come to as a result of his investigation of the circumstances in which a young boy was killed on the Panda crossing on the A.20 at Swanley on 31st August, 1962; and what action he proposes to take.

Mr. Hay: I understand that legal proceedings are to be taken against the driver of the vehicle. The matter must therefore be regarded as sub judice and it would be wrong for me to comment at this stage.

Mr. Irving: I appreciate the Minister's reply, but may I ask him to appreciate also that there is a great deal of local interest in the danger from this crossing? In view of this tragic accident, and in view of the apprehension on the part of pedestrians and some motorists about the danger arising from this type of crossing, will he look again at the question of these crossings throughout the country?

Mr. Hay: The Panda crossings throughout the country have not been in operation for 12 months yet, and I think that we need to wait a little longer before we can precisely assess the results. The House may like to know that in fact on the Panda crossings in the country at the moment there have been fewer accidents in the first five months of operation than at the same sites in the corresponding period a year ago. So the facts, on the face of it, appear to be against the belief that these are unsafe.

Flyovers

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Minister of Transport whether he is aware that the cost of flyovers in this country is much increased by the high


permitted height of road vehicles; and whether, in view of the fact that increasing traffic will make more and more flyovers essential, he will consider reducing the maximum permitted height of vehicles.

Mr. Hay: No, Sir. Present standard clearances are designed to meet the needs of road transport.

Mr. Digby: Is not the fact obvious to anyone who goes about the country in a motor car that more and more flyovers are going to be required? Should not everything possible be done to reduce their cost and bring it down to the kind of level we find on the Continent of Europe?

Mr. Hay: No, Sir. My hon. Friend is under a misapprehension. I am told that the aggregate financial saving on a reduction in height of a standard bridge or flyover would be very small indeed, and in some cases there would be no saving at all. I think that perhaps my hon. Friend might study the discussions on this matter that took place m the Select Committee on Estimates during the Session, 1958–59. I will send him copies of the proceedings.

Three-lane Highways

Mr. J. Wells: asked the Minister of Transport what percentage of road accidents on trunk roads took place on three-lane highways in the last 12 months.

Mr. Hay: During the 12 months ending 30th September, 1962, 3 per cent. of the fatal and serious accidents on A class roads were on roads with three-lane markings. I regret that it is not possible to give the figures for trunk roads alone.

Mr. Wells: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that information, but can he make a further statement about his intentions to reduce accidents on three-lane roads?

Mr. Hay: Not in answer to this Question. There is a further Question on the Paper in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Oliver). Perhaps my hon. Friend will pursue the matter when that Question is answered.

Mr. Manuel: Is the Minister aware that there is a growing volume of opinion among transport engineers that three-lane

highways are a great danger? Will he institute some investigation to consider whether the present three-lane highways should revert to two-lane highways? It would appear that this would be much safer.

Mr. Hay: I know that there are many opinions on this matter, but we must work on the facts as established by experiment and experience rather than on opinion. The facts are that the Road Research Laboratory has carried out a number of investigations into accidents on stretches of three-lane highway, and has found that only 2½ per cent. of all the accidents that took place on that type of highway involved overtaking in opposite directions. Moreover, the Laboratory also found that, comparing rural three-lane highways with rural dual carriageways, the same accident rate was observed on both. The facts, as found by research, are at variance with the generally held opinion, which I do not believe to be altogether right.

Mr. Oliver: asked the Minister of Transport whether, having regard to the added danger in the use of three-lane roads, he will ensure that no more of these will be built and that existing ones will be converted into dual highways.

Mr. Hay: No, Sir. Accident statistics and other available evidence do not support the view that three-lane roads are fundamentally more dangerous than other roads. Within the traffic capacity for which it is designed, that is approximately 7,500 vehicles a day, a three-lane road is a safe and economic form of construction. In practice, however, it is unlikely that many miles of new three-lane trunk road will be built because, with the increase in traffic, most of the roads now being constructed will need to have dual carriageways.

Mr. Oliver: Has the hon. Member seen the statement made in the other place by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who introduced the question of road accidents, that he himself had investigated 104 cases on the Oxford by-pass and had found that 20 per cent. were due to head-on collisions in the middle lane?

Mr. Hay: I saw the statement that was made and reported in another place. I have already told the House about


the results of an investigation by the Road Research Laboratory on this matter —results based on careful research. I can only suggest that there seems to be some divergence of opinion between these two sources.

Mr. Gower: Despite what my hon. Friends says, does he not think that it is absurd, when his Department is embarking on the building of ambitious new roads, including the Heads of Valley Road, to continue the construction of three-lane roads. Is this really building for the new age of increasing motor traffic, or is it merely playing with the problem?

Mr. Hay: No, Sir. We are building three-lane roads where the traffic conditions are such that anything more ambitious is not needed. Thereby we save a good deal of money and a good deal of land. However, I must tell my hon. Friend and the House that of 112 schemes in our major trunk road programme for 1962–66, only seven include the construction of three-lane roads, covering about 13½ miles in all. That gives a slightly different picture from the one put forward by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Strauss: Does the hon. Member admit the folly of building a three-lane road by Gatwick Airport—a very heavily trafficked road—when the road was being built over green fields and there would have been no additional expense? Does not he agree that many accidents have occurred on that road? Will he undertake to see that in these conditions no more three-lane roads will be built? Is he aware that there were protests at the time from myself and other people about constructing that type of road partly as a three-lane highway and partly as a dual carriagway?

Mr. Hay: The right hon. Member knows that that road is being improved. We do not commit ourselves to three-lane roads unless we are satisfied that the traffic volume is unlikely to be such as to need something better. This problem is always under review as traffic volumes change.

New Forest Roads (Fencing)

Mr. Gurden: asked the Minister of Transport what steps are being taken to fence the New Forest roads, in view

of the large number of accidents to animals.

Mr. Hay: A comprehensive scheme has been prepared by the verderers for confining the ponies and cattle to the Forest. As part of this scheme, we hope soon to fence the trunk road A.31 through the forest.

Mr. Gurden: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. In the meantime, will he use his new powers to impose a speed limit while this work is being carried out on the parts most affected?

Mr. Hay: I will draw that suggestion to the attention of my right hon. Friend, and it will be considered.

Mr. Turton: Is the Minister giving any grant towards this work?

Mr. Hay: The A.31 is all trunk road, and the expense involved is ours entirely.

A.38 Road (Accidents)

Mr. Kershaw: asked the Minister of Transport how many fatal and other accidents have occurred on the average each month on A.38 between Gloucester and Bristol; and what further action he will take to reduce this number.

Mr. Hay: For the first 10 months of this year there were, on average, 38 accidents reported to the police each month; of these 18 involved personal injury, 20 damage only. The personal injury accidents included a total of nine fatal accidents, an average of nearly one every month.
As my right hon. Friend said on 7th November, we intend to complete the improvement of this road to provide three lanes throughout. The evidence from the sections already improved suggests that this will enhance the safety of the road.

Mr. Kershaw: Does my hon. Friend know that it will be a great surprise to many people to know that three-lane highways are safer than two-lane highways, in view of the disastrous accident that took place last month on the stretch of road to which I refer? Will he ensure that if these three-lane highways are constructed the fullest use is made of white lines, in an overtaking system such as is used on the Continent?

Mr. Hay: If my hon. Friend disputes what I have said, he may like to know that in 1960–61 there were 30 per cent. fewer accidents on the three-lame sections than on the two-lane sections. As for white lines, we have to be a little careful because, so often, the placing of white lines depends on the actual alignment of the road. Wherever white-line treatment is appropriate, it is used.

Aston Down Bypass

Mr. Kershaw: asked the Minister of Transport why he intends to spend £24,000 on the Aston Dawn bypass.

Mr. Hay: A length of the original Cirencester-Stroud road across Aston Down airfield is now permanently stopped up, and a safer and more convenient substitute is required in place of the existing narrow road, which has two right-angled bends, which traffic has had to use since 1940. The Secretary of State for Air will provide the new road under an Order which my right hon. Friend made on 13th August on the basis of a report from the War Works Commission.

Mr. Kershaw: Is my hon. Friend aware that we have got on very well with the old road since 1940 and that this is £24,000 of absolutely unnecessary expenditure?

Mr. Hay: That is the opinion of my hon. Friend. If he wishes to pursue the matter, he ought to take it up with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air. But I should point out to him that the cost of putting the old road into order, were we not to build the new road, would be something between £10,000 and £12,000. That ought to be taken into account when assessing whether we are wasting £24,000.

Mr. Kershaw: Is not the old road in perfectly good order as it is?

A.19 (Improvements)

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Transport what steps he proposes to take to improve the A.19 road between Stockton and Thirsk with a view to reducing the number of traffic accidents and road casualties.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Transport what action he intends taking about road development on the A.19

road between Sheraton Road End and Cold Hesledon.

Mr. Hay: We have no plan for large-scale improvement of the section of the A.19 south of Stockton during the next few years, but we are looking into the possibility of undertaking a number of individual schemes to make the road safer. However, the special addition to the road programme which my right hon. Friend announced yesterday for the North-East includes major improvements of the A.19 at Shotton and Sheraton. We hope to start these in 1963–64. A major improvement at Easington village and a number of other smaller improvements of this length of road are also planned.

Mr. Turton: Is my hon. Friend aware that on this 25-mile stretch of road south of Stockton there were 500 casualties last year? Is he aware that if he goes on with the improvement north of Stockton he will be adding to the dangers on the road south of Stockton by bringing faster traffic on to the road? Will he make this road safer or, alternatively, give road users adequate warning of danger spots where at present there are no double white lines or any warnings of danger?

Mr. Hay: Our perennial problem is the allocation of the money we have for road improvement to wherever it will do the most good. In this case all we can do is to carry out a number of useful but comparatively small schemes over the next few years. Regarding the warning about danger spots and the use of white lines and so on, my right hon. Friend has written to the Minister recently on this subject and the Minister is writing fully in reply.

Mr. Shinwell: Do I understand from the hon. Gentleman that the Ministry is not proposing to proceed with the reconstruction of the road between Sheraton Road End and Cold Hesledon? Is he aware that, apart from the necessity to curb the accident rate on this stretch of road, it is essential to proceed with this development in order to attract industrialists to that part of the country? Is he aware that it is absurd to proceed with the remainder of the road scheme if this bottleneck remains? Surely the Government must do something about it, if only to provide employment?

Mr. Hay: With respect, I think that the right hon. Gentleman did not see the full details of what my right hon. Friend said yesterday or perhaps he has misunderstood what I have said today. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be kind enough to study the matter.

M.1 (Sheffield-Leeds Spur)

Dr. Broughton: asked the Minister of Transport what is his estimate of the date when the M.1 extension to Leeds will be completed.

Mr. Hay: The scheme for the Sheffield-Leeds Spur was made in August. Further statutory processes have to be gone through and the preparation is likely to be difficult and lengthy. The work will be put in hand as soon as these procedures are complete and funds are available but I cannot yet forecast when this will be.

Dr. Broughton: Is the Minister aware that the construction of this road should now be in progress and that it should be completed in the near future? Does not he regard this project as one of importance and urgency?

Mr. Hay: Yes, there is no doubt about that. We certainly regard it as one of importance and urgency and should like to do this work as early as we can. The trouble is that we are facing a major rehousing problem at Tinsley where there are 200 houses which have to be demolished. That will take some time. The motorway will run through difficult country. Much of the route affects industrial as well as residential development and there will be a number of major constructions, such as the viaduct over the Don Valley, which will cost a great deal of money. We must be given a little more time to try to solve these very difficult problems in the interests of the constituents of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Tiley: In view of the delay which is likely to take place in the building of this spur—for which there is no responsibility attaching to my hon. Friend who is merely carrying out the instructions of this House—may I compliment him on the work done on the A.1? There has been a remarkable transformation

during the last few years. May I ask what he is doing about the single blockage left at Newark which is all the more important now because of the delay on the M.1?

Mr. Hay: Newark is a litle way from the Sheffield-Leeds motorway. I gave my hon. Friend some information on this yesterday and I hope that we can get on with it very soon.

M.4 Road, Berkshire and Wiltshire (Alternative Routes)

Sir A. Hurd: asked the Minister of Transport if he has completed his consideration of the views of local authorities and others on the alternative routes for the M.4 motorway through Berkshire and Wiltshire; and if he is now able to announce definite proposals and the probable timing of the construction of the motorway.

Mr. Hay: No, Sir. The areas through which this section of the London-South Wales motorway may pass are of unusual interest. We are making a careful study of the views expressed by the local authorities and many others who are concerned. We shall announce our proposals as soon as we possibly can.

Sir A. Hurd: Was it not as long ago as July that the Minister asked urgently for the views of local authorities on three alternative routes? As he is not likely to please everyone by choosing one of these routes, would it not be as well to make his choice so that we can have the argument and see whether we can amend the Minister's choice?

Mr. Hay: That is a rather forbidding prospect. What we are trying to do is to reach the highest degree of general agreement on the line for the road. A number of ideas have been examined and others are still under consideration. I think that we Should be given a little longer to come to a provisional conclusion, which, in any event, would have to be publicised and laid open to the statutory objection procedure which Parliament has imposed.

Mr. Holt: Is not this another case where delay is being caused because the Ministry has not carried out far-reaching enough and adequate traffic and engineering surveys on alternative routes? If a


proper alternative scheme had been put before the local authorities a decision could have been taken long ago.

Mr. Hay: I think that the hon. Member is quite wrong. The reason for delay is that three of the possible alternative routes would pass through areas of very high natural beauty. Nothing gets people in this country more excited than the possibility of natural countryside being despoiled. That is what has caused the delay.

Oral Answers to Questions — SHIPPING

Subsidies and Flag Discrimination

Mr. McMaster: asked the Minister of Transport what measures Her Majesty's Government intends to take in the interests of British shipping to persuade other maritime nations to give up assistance to their merchant fleets in the form of direct subsidies and the making of regulations applying strict rules of flag discrimination to their import and export trades; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Vice-Admiral John Hughes Hallett): Her Majesty's Government will continue to employ any method likely to be effective of preventing practices by foreign Governments that restrict the ability of British shipping to compete on equal terms. We must not, however, adopt a cure that will be worse than the disease. I cannot usefully make any further statement as my right hon. Friend is awaiting the further views of the General Council of British Shipping, and the deliberations of the Shipping Advisory Panel will also, I hope, contribute to consideration of policy on these matters.

Mr. McMaster: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that, as a result of delay and Government inaction in this matter, we have lost over £200 million per annum in invisible export earnings by the Merchant Navy? Is he satisfied that tramp owners are properly represented on the Advisory Committee?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Yes, I am satisfied on that point. I do not, however, accept that the Government are in any way responsible for the very difficult position in this matter not only

of our British industry but also of the shipping industries of every other country in the world.

Mr. Mellish: But this problem has been outstanding for a long time and all we have had from the Government are certain assurances. What has the hon. and gallant Gentleman in mind as positive action? Is he in consultation with other Governments? This matter is too serious to be left to an ad hoc committee. Are the Government going to do as other Governments are doing for their shipping? Or do they intend to go on ignoring the situation, hoping that it will come out all right in the end?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: We are consulting other Governments, European Governments in particular, in the hope of forming a joint European approach to the problem. It is worth remembering, however, that we have succeeded since the war, under both Governments, in maintaining unity of purpose among the great European maritime Powers.

Mr. P. Williams: My hon. and gallant Friend has done a great deal to get a co-ordinated approach by European nations, but is he aware of the speech made by the First Secretary of State at the Chamber of Shipping annual dinner, in which his right hon. Friend said that in certain circumstances and subject to certain safeguards Britain would retaliate against certain foreign malpractices? What are those safeguards and when will they be used?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: The statement by my right hon. Friend represents Government policy. No useful purpose, however, would be served now by speculating on the sort of circumstances in which it might be advantageous to retaliate.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does not the hon. and gallant Member realise that one cause of the great unemployment in British yards is the recent obnoxious practice, introduced by the Government, of giving grants and loans to foreign yards in competition with British yards? Will he consult the Prime Minister or other relevant Ministers with a view to abandoning that obnoxious practice so that prosperity may return to British yards?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: This Question is about the shipping industry and not shipbuilding. However, I would take the opportunity of contradicting the hon. and learned Member's assertion that any unemployment has been caused by this practice. So far no orders have been placed through it.

Mr. McMaster: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that British owners say that their fleets are going rapidly out of date, and that unless some assistance is given they will not be in a position to compete with foreign shipping when trade revives?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: My hon. Friend paints too gloomy a picture of the modernity of our Merchant Navy. I think that our shipbuilding friends wish that it was not so modern. That is one of the difficulties of the shipbuilding industry.

Shipyards (Employment)

Mr. McMaster: asked the Minister of Transport if he is aware of the rapidly deteriorating employment position in British shipyards; and what steps he will take to ensure that United Kingdom shipbuilders do not suffer loss to the extent that, in spite of much recent modernisation, many of them will be forced to close down before the present shipping recession ends, and while at the same time building subsidies are being paid to foreign shipyards.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: We are aware of the position. The Government will continue to encourage by all means in their power the efforts of the industry to increase their competitive ability and in particular to obtain foreign orders. The Government will lose no opportunity of bringing pressure to bear on foreign Governments that subsidise their shipbuilding industries.

Mr. McMaster: I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for his Answer. Is he fully aware of the damaging effect on the rest of the economy, particularly on the North-East Coast, in Scotland and Northern Ireland, of the run-down in shipbuilding? Will he look again at the proposal that the same credit guarantees should be given to British shipowners to order boats in Britain as are given to

foreigners ordering boats in British yards?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I can assure my hon. Friend that we are well aware of the serious outlook for the industry at present, but we do not think that better credit terms would have much effect at the moment, because, whatever the position may have been in the past, the reason now for the lack of orders by British shipowners is the world surplus of shipping.

Mr. Willey: Will the Parliamentary Secretary say why his right hon. Friend is not here to reply to this Question? Is he aware that in the shipbuilding industry generally we consider that his right hon. Friend is indifferent to the difficulties of shipbuilding? When will he take steps to protect us against the subsidised unfair competition which British shipbuilding is now facing?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend's absence is not through any lack of concern or interest in shipping and shipbuilding. It is because he is unwell.

Sir H. Oakshott: Will my hon. and gallant Friend draw the attention of his colleagues in the Admiralty to the very cogent letter in The Times this morning from leading-shipowners, and will he try to place orders to get those yards busy again?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: We are, naturally, in constant consultation with my noble Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty on this very subject.

Mr. Bence: Is not the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the British Transport Commission has recently placed an order for a cross-Channel ferryboat with a Belgian shipbuilding firm?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: No, Sir. I cannot say that I am aware of that fact.

Shipping Advisory Panel

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Transport if he will make a statement about the personnel and work and scope of the Shipping Advisory Panel which he recently set up, indicating in particular the number and nature


of the problems it has considered, the advice it gave him and the number of its meetings.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: The terms of reference and membership of the Panel are as set out in my right hon. Friend's reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Barkston Ash (Sir L. Ropner) on 2nd August, 1962. The Panel has got quickly down to a number of important and valuable studies, but its proceedings are private and I have at present no announcement to make about them.

Mr. Hughes: In view of the many problems which confront the shipping industry, does not the Parliamentary Secretary think that the sittings of the Panel should be in public and that it should issue periodic reports? Will he see that it does so for the guidance of the shipping industry?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: No, Sir. With great respect to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that would be most unsuitable. The object of having the Panel is that matters of great commercial privacy should be discussed so that we can see the best way in which we can give help.

Mr. Hughes: Why should this Panel be different from any other? Why should it do its work in secret? Why should not its recommendations be made public?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I am certain that there are other panels which sit in secret.

United Kingdom Trade

Mr. Ridley: asked the Minister of Transport what is now the percentage of British trade being carried in British-owned ships.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: It is estimated that in 1961 about 50 per cent. by weight or about 65 per cent. by value of United Kingdom trade was carried in ships registered in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Ridley: Does not my hon. and gallant Friend think that this is a very sorry state of affairs? Does he not further think that it is due to discrimination and restrictive practices on the part of nearly all countries? Will he not now

agree that it is time for this country, if our percentage has fallen to 50, to adopt such practices in order to protect our shipping industry?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: First, these figures do not indicate the full extent of the performance of British shipping, because British ships are also heavily engaged in the world's cross trades, and that applies particularly to tankers. Secondly, I can only say what has been often said before—that there is no point in retaliating if in the process of retaliating one does oneself more injury than one benefits shipping.

Mr. Awbery: Does not the hon. and gallant Gentleman agree that using foreign tonnage when English tonnage is available is a bad practice? If he does, will he look into the matter?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I appreciate the point which the hon. Member makes, but I am sure that he will appreciate that all our policy has always been to try to maintain the international nature of shipping. That being so, it is not open to the Government to launch a great "ship British" policy.

Mr. Ridley: Would my hon. and gallant Friend say to what level the percentage must sink before it becomes relevant for us to change our policies in these matters as a due warning to the rest of the world?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: It is usually assumed by most maritime nations that if everybody were to discriminate, which is the point my hon. Friend is making, we should all end up on a 50–50 basis, whereas the present trade which this country carries is well ahead of that.

Commonwealth Shipyards (Subsidies)

Mr. Ridley: asked the Minister of Transport if he will make representations to those Commonwealth countries with substantial shipyards which are subsidised by them, in view of the effects of their action upon the United Kingdom shipbuilding industry.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I take it my hon. Friend has in mind Australia and Canada.
Both Governments have already been made aware of our concern at the effect of their subsidies on our shipbuilding. We shall continue to discuss this matter with Canada. As regards Australia, as I said to my hon. Friend on 27th June, their subsidies are of long standing and were started primarily for strategic reasons. We are not satisfied that it would be useful to make further representations at present.

Mr. Ridley: In view of the professed love for Commonwealth trade, is not this a respect in which we could make some improvement to help our shipbuilding industry? Will not my hon. and gallant Friend call a conference of Commonwealth countries interested in this matter to try to work out a fair and equitable basis for the shipbuilding industry? Is not this a case of dealing not with foreigners but with our own Commonwealth countries who should be willing to abide by the rules?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: We would consider calling a conference if we thought that anything would be gained by it, but the facts of life about this matter are that we cannot prevent another country from subsidising what it regards as an infant industry in order to get it started.

Mr. Bence: Would not the best contribution to a solution of this problem be an intensive drive to increase Commonwealth trade with the United Kingdom?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: That raises rather wider questions.

Mr. Marten: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that the Norwegian-American Line tendered for two passenger liners round Europe, and the contract in fact went to the French shipyards because they put a subsidy of 20 per cent. in the price, whereas we did not put in any subsidy? Will my hon. and gallant Friend make representations about this to the French Government, because, after all, they are in the position, vis-à-vis our negotiations with the Six, of being our fiancée?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: With respect to my hon. Friend, I do not think that his supplementary question arises from the main Question which is

essentially concerned with Commonwealth countries. I can, however, confirm what he says. It is a fact that that contract was lost as a result of the subsidy paid by the French Government.

Mr. Strauss: Is the conclusion to be drawn from the Parliamentary Secretary's Answer to this and earlier Questions that there is nothing that the Government intend doing, or which they think they can do, to help the shipping and shipbuilding industries in their present plight?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: The right hon. Gentleman would be drawing altogether too sweeping a conclusion if he were to say that, and it would be wrong to imagine that the representations which we make on this subject are entirely ineffective, because they are by no means so. In fact, it is satisfactory to recall that the great majority of the world's shipping is still free.

Shipbuilding (Orders)

Mr. P. Williams: asked the Minister of Transport what was the total tonnage of new shipbuilding orders placed with British shipyards in the first nine months of 1962; and how this compares with the capacity of the yards.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Three hundred and eighteen thousand gross tons of orders for merchant ships. In 1961 the industry estimated that its potential annual output was some 1,600,000 gross tons apart from naval construction.

Mr. Williams: Does my hon. and gallant Friend agree that there is a tremendous slack in the shipbuilding industry which needs to be taken up at some time, both in terms of employment and the provision of new national wealth? This being so, will my hon. and gallant Friend discuss with the Treasury the possibility of tied aid so that ships can be built and exported to countries presently wanting assistance from this country?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I should like to think a little more about the precise proposition of my hon. Friend, but the short answer is that we are limited by the G.A.T.T. agreement. We are restricted from placing a subsidy


solely for export orders. If we placed a subsidy at all it would have to be a general construction subsidy.

Mr. Willey: Can the hon. and gallant Gentleman say when his right hon. Friend last met the shipbuilders, and what was the effect of their discussions?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Speaking from memory, my right hon. Friend last met the shipbuilders about 10 to 14 days ago, and I meet them regularly every month, or sometimes every other month.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the international maritime shipping and shipbuilders' organisations have been meeting recently to consider, not the building of more ships, but an international agreement on laying up tonnage, simply because there is a surplus of tonnage throughout the world? Therefore, it is no use talking about building ships in view of this circumstance. Is not the solution to the problem, and the only possible solution, not subsidies and credit terms and all the rest of it, but an increase in the volume of international trade?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: The right hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct, and it is true that the first meeting of, I hope, a profitable series of meetings took place yesterday of the international tramp shipowners in the hope of coming to some sort of freight stabilisation agreement.

Mr. Williams: In view of the importance of this subject, I give notice that I wish to raise it on the Adjournment at the earliest possible date.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Central London—Airports (Access)

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Minister of Transport what plans he has for providing swift access to airports from central London; and what bearing these plans will have upon the policy of Her Majesty's Government concerning the development of helicopter sites in central London.

Mr. Hay: Access to Heathrow has been improved by the work already completed on the route from central London. It will be further improved by the completion

of the motorway from Chiswick flyover. Work has started on this motorway which will incorporate a spur to the airport.
Access to Gatwick from Central London must continue to be mainly by rail.
The extent to which these factors will influence the development of helicopter sites in central London is a matter primarily for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation.

Mr. Iremonger: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that the last part of his remarks is the whole point? Will he undertake to make representations to his right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, and when applications are made for planning permission will he impress on him that the development of helicopter sites in central London is monstrously uneconomic, and that it would be very much more to the public benefit if surface transport were more adequately developed?

Mr. Hay: With respect to my hon. Friend, I find the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport in this matter a little tenuous. I will study what my hon. Friend has said and see whether there is any way in which we can help him, but we are providing the speediest method of surface transport that we can find to airports, in one case by the motorway, and in the other case by existing rail access.

Mr. Lipton: Is it not a fact that despite the improvements to which the hon. Gentleman has referred in connection with surface transport, the Government have made up their mind to establish a helicopter site at Nine Elms Goods Yard, and that that decision has been taken despite very strong protests from the Lambeth Borough Council, the London County Council, and all other local authorities in central London who will be adversely affected by it?

Mr. Hay: I can only suggest that the hon. Gentleman pursues this vendetta with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation.

Mr. Channon: Has my hon. Friend seen the letter in The Times today which referred to the enormous amount of


movement from Southend Airport? If so, why has he not given information about swift access to that airport?

Mr. Hay: My hon. Friend had better await the information that I am going to send him in answer to his previous Question.

Helicopter Noise

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Minister of Transport if he will make available to those concerned with the planning of a heliport the experience of his Departmental research station on the problems of noise; and if he will refer the problem of helicopter noise to his research workers for special study.

Mr. Hay: Investigation into noise from motor vehicles has been done by the Motor Industry Research Association in conjunction with my Department and the National Physical Laboratory. Results have been published in the Interim Report of the Committee on the Problem of Noise which was presented to Parliament last July.
Problems arising from helicopter noise are primarily the concern of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation and are, I understand, within the field of inquiry of the Committee to which I have referred.

Mr. Iremonger: Is my hon. Friend aware that his right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation is suspected of having set his heart on developing these helicopter sites, come hell or high water, and that it really is important that the effect of noise should be made known to the public? Will my hon. Friend arrange to have the results of research into noise made known to the public so that they will be able to assess what sort of effect it will have on them if these helicopter ports are developed?

Mr. Speaker: I think that that is all out of order. The helicopter noise problem is apparently not for this Minister, nor, as far as I know, is hell or high water.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Can my hon. Friend say what his Department is doing about the Interim Report of the Wilson Committee on Noise from Motor Vehicles, to which he referred in his Answer? Is

it just being allowed to lie, or is somebody going to do something about it?

Mr. Hay: My hon. Friend had better put that question down.

Provisional Licence Holders

Mr. Walker: asked the Minister of Transport if he will introduce legislation to ensure that drivers of motor cars and commercial vehicles holding a provisional driving licence have to be accompanied by a person over the age of 21 who has held an annual licence for at least two years.

Mr. Hay: No, Sir. I do not feel that there would be justification on safety grounds for imposing these further rules.

Mr. Walker: Does not my hon. Friend agree that it cannot be correct for a teen-age provisional licence holder to be accompanied by a teen-age driver with only a few months' experience? Will he refer this matter to one of his advisory committees on road safety?

Mr. Hay: I will consider my hon. Friend's suggestion, but I suggest that the important factor is the length of experience of the accompanying driver, rather than his age. It is possible that a very young driver has had a good deal of experience.

Mr. Walker: Will my hon. Friend answer the second part of my supplementary question?

Mr. Hay: Evidently my hon. Friend did not hear what I said. I said that I would consider his suggestion about referring the matter to the Departmental Committee on Road Safety.

Motor Cycle and Scooter Riders (Training)

Mr. Cleaver: asked the Minister of Transport if he will take powers to give help to local authorities in finding suitable sites on which to train young men and women motor cycle and motor scooter riders.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Section 75 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, gives local authorities powers to make arrangements for the practical training of motor cycle and scooter riders. I think the authorities themselves are best placed for finding suitable sites.

Mr. Cleaver: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that land in Birmingham is very scarce and, when it is obtainable, it is very expensive? Is he aware that when those who operate the cycle tracks organise schemes they cannot train the riders they wish to train?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: We wish to encourage local authorities to exercise these powers because we recognise the great value of this training. To a large extent local authorities have been successful, sometimes using school playgrounds or private roads; sometimes persuading factories to allow their private roads to be used. Also, when it is appropriate and they approach a Government Department for the use of Government land, sympathetic consideration is always given.

Mr. Bourne-Arton: Is the Minister aware of the intolerable nuisance caused on the very well-known existing circuits on which these people are trained, not so much by the testing but by every Sunday being made hideous by competitors practising? This is a persistent and intolerable nuisance. Does not the existing practice of having well-known circuits on which to test reduce the value of the test?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: The object of this Section is to train rather than to test. We have to balance the admitted inconvenience of noise with the greater saving of lives.

Mr. Cleaver: asked the Minister of Transport, if he has yet reached a decision as to whether he will accept the Royal Automobile Club-Auto-Cycle Union's proficiency test as a certificate of competence to obtain a G. licence.

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: I have not seen any evidence to suggest that the proficiency tests which form part of the R.A.C./A.C.U. motor cycle training scheme are comparable with the official driving test. But we are well aware of the value of the training scheme and propose to discuss with the organisers other possibilities of linking it more closely with our own test organisation.

Mr. Cleaver: Is my hon. and gallant Friend aware that I do not agree with him? Is he aware that the standard of the certificate is extremely high and that the organisers of the scheme are prepared to co-operate by having Ministry of Transport inspectors at their tests in order that the certificate may be a prerequisite of the holding of a licence?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: We agree about the high standard of the training given. The only definite evidence we have is that in 1959–60 when about 15 clubs showed a comparison with their test, 31 out of 106 of the results did not correspond with the performance of the same candidates in our own driving test. We hope to discuss the matter further with the authorities, as I said, with a view to trying to bring the two sets of tests into line.

Mr. Cleaver: Will my hon. and gallant Friend bear in mind that the police as well as motor cycle clubs are interested in this scheme?

Vice-Admiral Hughes Hallett: Yes, Sir.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS

Church of England

Mr. Maginnis: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 14th December, I shall call attention to the present state of the Church of England, and move a Resolution.

Rents

Mr. Sorensen: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 14th December, I shall call attention to the alarming rise in rents, and move a Resolution.

Town and Country Planning

Mr. Matthews: I beg to give notice that on Friday, 14th December, I shall call attention to a study of the Town and Country Planning Act on a regional basis, and move a Resolution.

Orders of the Day — EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to continue certain expiring laws, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of such expenses as may be occasioned by the continuance until the thirty-first day of March, nineteen hundred and sixty-four, of the Rent of Furnished Houses Control (Scotland) Act 1943, the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act 1946, and Part II of the Licensing Act 1953, being expenses which under any Act are to be provided out of such moneys.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL

Considered in Committee.

[Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

Clauses 1 and 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule.—(ACTS CONTINUED.)

3.35 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 7 and 8.
Lines 7 and 8 of the Schedule refer to Section 1 of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act, 1919. I appreciate that the Committee is not concerned this afternoon with the wisdom or humanity of the Home Secretary's exercise of the powers which the House has for many years entrusted to him, but with whether he ought to have those powers and whether the Act of 1919 is such an Act that we ought to continue it even for one more year. This is the sort of debate which we have had year by year aver many years. The major fundamental criticism which we have ail made is that it leaves the Home Secretary with too many arbitrary powers over the liberties and, as we have always realised potentially and as now we know actually, the lives, of human beings.
The right hon. Gentleman is able to decide matters of the utmost importance in the lives of individuals and families without appeal, without reference to any

kind of third party judgment and—I confess that this was new to me—without being under any obligation whatever even to listen to the representations from the people whose lives he is, as it were, dominating or controlling. To see whether these powers ought to be continued it is necessary to see what the powers are as recently defined in the Court of Appeal. It is also necessary to see for illaustration purposes how they apply in a particular case.
I therefore propose to illustrate my argument that these powers ought now to come to an end by one single recent and now world-famous, or world-notorious, case. Although I must refer to detail, I am not doing so by way of criticising the Home Secretary. We cannot do that on this occasion. The occasion for critising how he administered any particular case arises at another time, but we cannot illustrate the argument on which my proposition that the powers should come to an end is based unless we are prepared, frankly and without fear and without favour, to see how, in fact, the powers work.
It is not a question whether the result achieved was fair or just or humane; it is a question whether any one man in any country in any Government is fit to exercise powers of this kind. The case I want to refer to is the case of Robert Soblen, deceased. Who was Robert Soblen? I have here a letter from him addressed to me from Brixton Prison on 6th August. He died a few days later.

"Dear Sir,

I am very thankful to you for your intervention on my behalf. I felt isolated, alone, and your action gave me hope. I was never a spy. I am an innocent man and paying for 'political sins' of 18 years ago. Your humane interest in my case has strengthened my belief that there are many who would not want to see a stain on the conscience of mankind if I am sent to prison for the rest of my days.

Sincerely thankful,

Yours,

Dr. Robert A. Soblen."

Dr. Soblen had reason to be more grateful to others, including my hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones). I hope that it is not out of order or improper to refer to him, although he was acting in a professional capacity. But Dr. Soblen had no reason whatever to be grateful to the Home Secretary, and as


for the stain on the conscience of mankind, it is now, unfortunately, indelible.

Who was he? What about him? How did all this arise? I should like to read to the House another, very short, letter. I will not quote the name, but the Home Secretary will recognise the letter because I sent it to him at the time. It is addressed to me:
You will be aware of the case of Dr. Robert Soblen, the psychiatrist who is in Brixton prison awaiting court action on Tuesday next. As I knew him well, 30 years ago, as a fellow student in pre-Hitler Germany, I am writing to you to take interest in this man. As a Jew from Lithuania, he came, as so many then, from Poland, Rumania, Hungary under a 'numerus clausus' and was forced to study abroad. Of course these men and women were naturally rebellious and Soblen was quite outstanding in his fight against the encroaching Fascist peril. We, the young German students, looked up to him, a personality inspiring respect and admiration. Then Hitler came and the few who survived went into the 'diaspora'. When I read two weeks ago the incredible reports in the Press I tried to get in touch with him after a gap of almost 30 years and was able to see him on two occasions in the hospital prison, a man deeply depressed and without hope. He assured me repeatedly that he had never been a spy and never given away defence secrets, and I believe this. The most dreadful blow was the treatment dealt out to him in Israel, where he was sure to find refuge—a point that surely needs urgent clarification. Counting on your interest and help.
It is signed, but I do not propose to disclose the signature.

I sent the letter to the Home Secretary on 31st July, and he replied:
Thank you for sending me the letter you received from…about the case of Dr. Robert Soblen. I can give you my assurance that this will be taken into account.

I accept his assurance. I have no doubt that he took it into account. With what result? On 3rd August, he wrote to me as follows:
As I promised, I took into account the representations made about Dr. Robert Soblen in the letter which you forwarded. I do not think there is anything further I can add, but you will probably wish to have this letter back.

What he decided, as we shall see in a moment, having taken this letter and all other representations into account, was that it was in the public interest of this country that he should exercise his arbitrary powers and hand him back to his gaolers of the United States of America.

3.45 p.m.

How does America come into it? He had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on a charge arising out of America's espionage laws. It is important to bear in mind that three grand juries in the United States threw out the bill before they found a grand jury which would return a true bill. Moreover, he was not charged at any time with giving any information to anybody. He was charged with conspiring to give information, but not with the accomplished fact. A very large number—I have forgotten how many, but it went into double figures or more—of fellow conspirators were named, but no one else was charged. The offence with which he was charged—conspiring to give information—happened, if it happened at all, eighteen years ago, and there was no charge of anything thereafter. He was convicted on what in our courts would be regarded as the flimsiest of evidence, and I have no doubt that in any English court he would have been triumphantly acquitted.

It may be asked what all this has to do with the House of Commons and what all this has to do with the Home Secretary. It has a great deal to do with it, because if this man had been or could have been arrested here under our extradition Acts, there was to begin with an insuperable difficulty in that our extradition treaty with the United States of America does not make this charge an extraditable offence. Probably that is why our authorities did not proceed against him under the extradition Acts.

But assuming that it had been an extraditable offence there is still a duty on any court before whom anyone is brought in this country and a request for extradition made; for it has to be established that the evidence offered affords a reasonable and probable presumption of guilt. That is why what evidence there was against him on the original charge, although he was domiciled in another country, is relevant to what we have to consider today.

When he was convicted, he appealed. When it became clear that his appeal would not be successful—it must be borne in mind that his appeal was purely on legal points and not a retrial—he escaped. He went in an aeroplane to Israel. What happened in Israel


has nothing to do with this Committee, but one may as well tell the story properly, and I am bound to say that I feel personally humiliated by what the Israeli authorities did to him.

It is a part of the story and part of what the Home Secretary had a duty to consider when he denied this dying man refuge in our country. What did Israel do? A country whose great glory was that no one claiming to be a Jew would go to its shores and be turned away turned him away, hustled him away overnight, into the custody of a United States marshal, and the pitiful excuse given afterwards was that he had landed with a false passport and had committed an offence against the immigration laws of Israel. I do not want to say too much, but if the present citizens or inhabitants of Israel who arrived there in contravention of the immigration laws were to be hustled out overnight, the country would lose 65 per cent. of its population overnight.

I am glad to know that public opinion in Israel is censorious, and rightly censorious, of what was done, and I say no more about it than that he was put on a plane which went to Athens, there transferred to another plane going to America, which came down in this country, but he had done a physical act to himself that made it necessary, for purely humanitarian reasons, that he should be given treatment.

There is a lot of argument, and there was a lot of argument in the courts, as to whether in the end, in practice or in law, he was given leave to land, but I am content to assume that the Home Office and Court of Appeal decision that he was not given leave to land was correct. But why was it not given? Who decided it? On what evidence? What representations were made, including what representations were made by the Government of the United States of America? He was a dying man, although many efforts were made to cover up on this and to pretend that he was not. I have a long letter describing what took place at the inquest. It was a long inquest, which did not seem to be concerned at all with his health, or how he died, or what he died from. Almost all of it was devoted to a painstaking inquiry into how he came to be in possession of certain drugs.

I have here a doctor's letter, from which I will quote:
May I add that in 30 years of medical experience, involving work in many hospitals in four countries, I have never experienced such inhumanity.

At the inquest, his family had arranged to have a Home Office specialist present. The name of Dr. Keith Simpson is well known. Why was he not called? His evidence was in the hands of the coroner. Why was he never called to give evidence? It is important.
I have been informed"—

says my informant—
by the widow that according to this evidence leukaemia was present in acute form, and that the life expectancy was judged to be one to two months.

Did the Home Secretary know that? Was it really so overwhelmingly necessary to our country that a man with one to two months to live should not be allowed to land, should be handed back to be transported for imprisonment for life on a charge on which we would never have convicted him, and on a charge for which he was not extraditable from this country?

Mr. R. T. Paget: Has it ever been suggested by anybody that this man was in any way concerned with the security of this country?

Mr. Silverman: Certainly not. I do not know what representations may have been made by the United States Government to the Home Secretary or to the British Government. The reason why I do not know is not that the right hon. Gentleman does not know, but that he will not tell. The knowledge is in his possession. He admits that some representations were made. That has never been denied, but he will not say what the information was. All I am concerned with for the moment is whether he knew this man to be dying when he refused him leave to land, and, subsequently, having refused him leave to land, made a deportation order against a man who, according to his own adjudication, was not here at all.
What did he take into consideration? What was the overwhelming reason why this man should be hunted, hounded and persecuted, and ultimately driven to death because we could not afford him living space in our territory for the one or two months that he still had? What


is the law which enables our Home Secretary to do that? I should like to state it very shortly in the words of the Court of Appeal, and I am not going to read any of the judgments. As hon. Members know, there is always a head note before the actual judgments are printed, and the head note gives a short summary of the facts and sets out shortly what the court held to be the law. What did it hold to be the law? It is because they held this to be the law that I say that this Committee ought today to say that after today this ought no longer to be the law of the land.
First—and this I do not deal with, because it is a separate and very technical point, which was advanced on behalf of Dr. Soblen by his legal representative—the Aliens Order of 1953 is invalid, anyhow. I should have thought, reading the arguments, that there was much to be said for that view, but, whether there was or not no longer matters, because the Court of Appeal —and we know that there has been no appeal from it—held that the Order is valid under the Aliens Act, which the Government are proposing to continue for another twelve months this afternoon. What else did it hold? It held that
The provisions of Article 8 (4) and Article 20 of the Order of 1953 were cumulative and supplementary, not mutually exclusive.
I will not read the rest of it, because hon. Members may wonder what in the world all that means. I propose to tell them.
4.0 p.m.
Article 8 of the Aliens Order, 1953, whose validity depends on the Act which the Government now propose to continue, deals with the Home Secretary's power to remove aliens who have been refused leave to land. Dr. Soblen was an alien who had been refused leave to land. That is the contention of the Home Office. That is what the Home Secretary fought for in the lower court; that is what he fought for in the Court of Appeal, and that is what he satisfied to his own satisfaction. Therefore, we can no longer contend that Article 8 did not apply to him. He was, indeed, an alien who had been refused leave to land.
What can be done to such a man? He can be deported. He can be sent

away. Article 8 defines how and when he can be sent away. For one thing, if he is not sent away for two months, he cannot be sent away at all, not under Article 8. For another thing, directions can be given to place him on board the ship or aircraft which brought him here. Or, if that is not possible, directions can be given to the owners or agents—not to anybody else—of the aircraft or ship that brought him here to take him back. In the meantime, things can be done to enable those things to be done. That is all.
It was not possible to do that in Soblen's case, because the airline which brought him here no longer had the aircraft here which brought him and refused the directions to put him on another one. Therefore, the Home Secretary was unable to apply to Dr. Soblen, he being a man who had been refused leave to land, the powers under the Aliens Order which the Home Secretary had to deal with persons refused leave to land.
Does anybody think that the Home Secretary will be defeated by that? This is where Article 20 comes in. The Home Secretary has more powers under Article 20. The Court of Appeal decided—it is not for me to question it, though I confess that I am puzzled by the reasoning which led the court to the conclusion —that the Home Secretary still had powers under Article 20, even though the specific powers which the Order gives him for persons refused leave to land under Article 8 do not apply or cannot be applied.
Article 20 has no time limit. It can be applied at any time. Article 20 does not require that directions shall be given to the company that brought the alien here, because he may have been here many years and nobody may know who brought him here. But for the decision of the Court of Appeal, one might ask: if Article 20 can be applied to aliens refused leave to land, what is Article 8 doing in the Order at all? It is not needed.
I cannot understand what the Court of Appeal meant by saying that the two powers are not mutually exclusive and that one is supplementary to the other. The Court of Appeal did not say which is supplementary to which. Obviously, the one dealing with people refused


leave to land cannot be supplementary to the one dealing with those who are normally resident here. There are obvious things in Article 20 which are not fitting to conditions of people who have been refused leave to land.
That is why the two Articles are there. But the Court of Appeal has said that all the protections, such as there are, under Article 8 are of no avail at all if the Home Secretary chooses to apply the other Article. If that really is the law of the land, even on this one comparatively minor point, it is time we did something to change it.
What else did the Court of Appeal decide? The headnote continues:
(iii) an alien had no right that, before a deportation order was made against him, representations from him should be heard, directed to the requirement under Article 20 (2, b) of the Aliens Order, 1953, that the Secretary of State should deem it conducive to the public good that the order should be made.
Therefore, although Article 20 applies to him when it is a question of using it to send him out, it does not apply to him when it is a question of giving him any safeguards against the deportation order made.
It is a monstrous state of the law, if it is the state of the law, which the Court of Appeal has declared. Why should not he have a right to make representations? Can the Home Secretary tell us whether he defends at this time of day the proposition that a man can be deported in these circumstances—a dying man who has committed no offence against our laws and very likely no offence against anybody's—and handed back to be imprisoned for the rest of his life without having the right to make any representation on his own behalf to the right hon. Gentleman?
Moreover, when the Home Secretary has made the Order, when he decides whether to make the Order or not, without having any duty to hear representations on the man's behalf, there is no appeal of any kind to any third party judgment. How can this be justified at any time, and still more at a time like this when all over the world there are people caught up in the flotsam and jetsam of world conditions for which they are not responsible but of which they are the inevitable victims? There is no representation. There is the absolute power of the Home Secretary.
He need not listen to anybody. He need not tell us what representations he has listened to. He need not give us any reasons. He can apply Article 20, which, on the face of it, has no application.
That is not the end of it. The head-note goes on to say this; this is the last reason:
on the evidence there was no ground tending to show that the deportation order had not been made in the honest belief that the deportation order would be conducive to the public good …
I pause there. Surely in any sane, sensible or civilised state of the law the onus ought to be on the Home Secretary, if he asserts that it is conducive to the public good, to say what it is and prove that it is. How can we place on a man here for a few days, with no knowledge of our law, the onus of adducing evidence that the Home Secretary was wrong in holding that it was conducive to the public good? It is an astounding state of the law which no man of integrity, I dare to assert, can possibly defend in this Committee or, for that matter, anywhere else.
I will read the second half of the last reason:
or that it was a sham or device for bringing about an unlawful extradition.
Soblen had to prove that it was a device for bringing about an unlawful extradition.
There is no doubt that that was the result. An unlawful extradition was, in fact, effected, and when I say an unlawful extradition I mean an extradition that would have been unlawful under the Extradition Act. The whole object of the operation was to place the United States Government in the same position as they would have been if an application for extradition had been made, and had succeeded. That was the object of the operation, and that would have been the operation but for the man's death.
Why unlawful? Unlawful, because everyone knows that extradition proceedings could not have succeeded. It was not an extraditable offence, but what the court has held must now be taken as the law of the land if we continue this Act.
What is the law on this point if we continue this Act? If the Home Secretary desires to get rid of an alien, desires to hand him over for punishment to another


country or to carry out punishment in another country that has already been awarded, and if the man is an alien, and if he is not extraditable, the Home Secretary can use his general powers under the Order to produce a result that could not have been produced under the law of the land.
Does the Home Secretary really want this power—does he? Where it is conceded that the offence is not extraditable, does he want to use his general powers on a vague phrase about it being conducive to the public good in order to produce an extradition that he could get in no other way—in the case of a man who had suffered enough, who was dying, who had committed no offence at all against us, and who was a man, be it said, apart from the offence with which he was charged, of the highest possible professional and human repute?
That cannot be right, can it? It cannot be right, according to any conception of the laws of natural justice that I have ever heard of, that the Home Secretary should be bolted and barred at the front door and at every window in the house, but allowed to escape through an unnoticed crevice at the back that no one else had ever heard of, and had never thought was available—and then not to say why.
I know why the Home Secretary thought it conducive to the public good. It was because the United States Government asked him to do it, and because he believes that it is not conducive to the public good for this country ever to refuse any request by the United States Government, no matter how unreasonable, at any time. That is not my view of what is conducive to the public good of the country.
I am not making any narrow technical plea about sovereignty. I know that the Government no longer believe in the independence or sovereignty of this country, but there are people who do not agree with me about that. They think that the Government do so believe. But this is surely a very strange abdication of it, is it not, that, merely because a foreign country asks one to do it, one does an act that is unjust, that is unhumane, and that has no foundation or

justification in the laws of one's own country?
I have spoken long enough. There are other hon. Members that want to speak—indeed, there are other things I may like to say. I hope that I have said enough to induce the Committee to believe that it is too late to treat this debate as a sort of annual circus that we can have year after year, to which the Home Secretary listens and, if he makes a conciliatory speech at the end of the debate, we give him the powers, and everyone goes home and forgets about it for another twelve months.
We have reached a pitch—displayed by this disgraceful action in the case of Soblen; an action that brought us into contempt all over the world—enough, surely, to persuade the Committee to take a long and serious look at whether it should continue this Act for another day.

4.15 p.m.

Mr. Dingle Foot: The Committee has just listened to a very moving speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). I do not propose to follow him into the details of the Soblen case, but I should like to address the Committee for a few minutes on the issue which that case has raised. It is perfectly true, as my hon. Friend has said, that we have an annual debate on the aliens laws, and for year after year my hon. Friends have asked for in inquiry into those laws and their operation. It seems to me that the case that my hon. Friend has so movingly described tremendously strengthens the argument that there should be a full inquiry.
There has been no such inquiry since 1903. In that year, there was a Royal Commission. At that time, there was a good deal of public concern because of the influx of Jewish refugees from Czarist Russia. They were congregating in certain districts of the East End of London, and there was agitation that was extremely similar to the agitation we have had in this country as a result of coloured immigration from the West Indies, India and Pakistan.
The Royal Commission was followed by the Act of 1905, an Act that was passed in spite of the most vigorous protests by the Opposition of that day. They said that it was a new and extremely


undesirable departure that we should give to officials the right to bar anyone from coming to this country. None the less, that Act compares extremely favourably with the state of the law that exists under the Order in Council of 1953, with which we are concerned.
There was in that Act, as there is not in the Order of 1953, an express recognition of the right of political or religious asylum. Section 1 (3) lays down the conditions on which an expulsion order may be made against the alien, and there then follow these words:
… but, in the case of an immigrant who proves that he is seeking admission to this country solely to avoid prosecution or punishment on religious or political grounds or for an offence of a political character, or persecution, involving danger of imprisonment or danger to life or limb, on account of religious belief, leave to land shall not be refused on the ground merely of want of means, or the probability of his becoming a charge on the rates …
In those days, that is to say, an immigrant who landed here had an opportunity of proving that he was a refugee from political or religious persecution.
Secondly, and this is more significant still, although the Home Secretary was given, for the first time in our legislation, the right to make an expulsion order—which we now call a deportation order—he could, under that Act, make it only on the recommendation of the court. The position is quite different today. The Home Secretary can deport any alien if, in the words of the order, he deems it to be
conducive to the public good
to make the order.
Apart from the Extradition Acts there is no recognition in the law governing aliens of the right of political asylum. There is, of course, an administrative procedure which was set up by the Government in 1956 as a result of the European Convention on Establishment. It is perfectly true that in certain cases the alien against whom a deportation order is sought to be made has the opportunity of a hearing before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate or one of the magistrate's colleagues. But that is a strictly limited right. It does not apply to cases where a deportation order has been made on ground of public security, or on the ground of the alien landing in the United Kingdom without permission, or on the ground that during his stay in

the United Kingdom he has within two years failed to observe the conditions attaching to his stay.
In all these cases—and we are particularly concerned here with the second, the alien landing without permission—the alien gets no hearing at all. In these matters we are a long way behind some other countries, and it might be worth while for the Committee to consider the position in the United States and indeed in some parts of the British Commonwealth.
In the United States there is a particular provision which is made under their Act of 1952 with reference to aliens who arrive on their shores. The alien may be kept out on a variety of grounds, but before he can be sent back he is entitled to a hearing by someone who is designated for that purpose and whose title is special inquiry officer. Although it is not a court of law, nevertheless it is quite clearly intended to be a judicial proceeding in all essentials, because it is provided that the special inquiry officer shall not himself take any part in the investigation of this man's case and he shall not in any sense be a prosecutor. He has to sit there and hear what the alien has to say. Then there is this provision:
The determination of such special inquiry officer shall he based only on the evidence produced at the inquiry.
That means, of course, that there has to be evidence, and if it is adverse the alien himself has an opportunity of meeting it. He has We right to be represented, and if the special inquiry officer decides against him there is specific provision for an appeal to the Attorney-General of the United States.
The position is very much the same in Canada, where there is a board of inquiry. It is to consider whether the alien may be allowed to remain or whether he must leave Canada. There again, it is specifically provided that the immigrant may be represented by counsel before the, board—of three in this case—which is empowered to receive evidence, and there is an appeal from the board to the Minister concerned.
In Australia, there is a board of three members. An alien who is ordered to be deported on a particular ground, that


is to say, on the ground that he advocates the overthrow by force or violence of the established Government of the Commonwealth, may be ordered to appear before the board and show cause why he should not be deported. There again, he has the opportunity of a hearing. I do not know what the position is at the moment, but even in South Africa, when she was a member of the Commonwealth, the law, by an Act of 1933. provided for the, setting up of a board to which the excluded alien could appeal.
I have taken these few examples, and I think that it would not be difficult to find others, to show how far in this matter we are lagging behind other countries. In all these countries the alien ordered to be deported has the right to be heard. He has the right to present his case or to have it presented for him. All we are asking is that we should try to observe in this country a very elementary principle of justice, Audi alterem partem—"Hear the other party" We are asking that there should be no such case as that of Dr. Soblen in this country again and that every alien against whom a deportation order is sought to be made should have the right to be heard. This is not an unreasonable request, but it can only be met by a change of the law. I hope, therefore, that we shall have from the Minister a much more sympathetic answer than we have had in recent years.

Dr. Jeremy Bray: I rise to speak in the debate because the case which I wish to put is one where, as the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) so movingly said, the stain is not indelible. In this case, there is hope. The individuals concerned are alive, some in this country and some behind the Iron Curtain.
The case is one which the hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. (Mr. Kitson) and myself have been pressing with the Home Office. We make no complaint whatsoever about the humanity or the efficiency of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in dealing with it. Indeed, our impression has been that he has been extremely restive under the

administrative framework within which he has had to operate. This is the case of a young man. He comes from a country behind the Iron Curtain and he was able to visit this country as a tourist earlier this year. His two elder brothers live in this country, having served with the allied forces during the war.
The young man himself and many members of his family have served for various periods in Siberia. The aged mother, behind the Iron Curtain, is fatally ill and she may by now be dead. The whole family agreed that every effort should be made to reunite the brothers on this side of the Iron Curtain—in this country. The brothers are married to English girls. They have families. They are well paid and there is no question of the young man himself, a productive and efficient worker, being a charge on the rates. Yet we were told by the Joint Under-Secretary that the rules were perfectly clear and that this man could not be allowed to stay in this country. We were further told that by comparison with other cases which had been rejected the case was not a bad one.
This raises the question of what these rules are. I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) what his knowledge of the rules was from his period of office. He told me that there were no such rules, but only general understandings or general practices. Are there rules or are there not? If there are, why cannot we know them and at least know the framework within which these decisions are taken?
4.30 p.m.
We are fortunate in this country in that we have not suffered the breaking up of most families in the way in which they have been broken up in such countries as the one from which this young man comes. We have a great reputation for making it possible for many of these flotsam and jetsam, as my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne has said, to find peace and a creative life within our society. Why can we not make it possible for these families to come together over here? There is no question of a tremendous flood of people coming in. If we set up rules which can be generally approved, there is surely no question that the numbers coming in would add appreciably to those who


are already here; and if that is the case, why can we not be told how many have sought to come or how many have been refused?
The powers of the Home Secretary in this matter are absolute and unquestionable. No one can call him to account. He has other grievous personal responsibilities in deciding the personal fate of many human beings. In the case, for example, of the death penalty there have at least been judicial proceedings in which the case has been discussed with proper pleading and proper legal representation in the courts. There is none of this in the case of aliens seeking permission to remain.
We are told that there is a security risk attached, but is there really any question of aliens coming to this country, getting jobs in which security would be an important consideration? What about the abuses which arise from allegations which are made without proper foundation, in which the person against whom they are made is never even told, let alone given a chance to reply to them? There will undoubtedly be an increasing volume of such cases in the future, especially if the plans of the Government to join the European Economic Community bear fruit.
Surely at this time, considering the immense changes which the Government are contemplating in the movement of aliens in and out of the country, there is an excellent case for reviewing the machinery. I therefore ask specifically: why cannot the rules under which the Home Secretary operates be published? Why cannot there be a tribunal to which individuals can put their case? I accept that secrecy may be necessary in such cases as the one that I have described, but at least it should be possible both for the rules under which such a tribunal works to he known and for any person appearing before such a tribunal to be properly represented.
As I say, there is still hope in the case I have put to the House. The hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. and I advised this young man to return to his country in the hope that a change would be possible this year, and this man, who is now engaged to an English girl, hopes to return. There may be others like him. Can the Home Secretary not hold

out some hope not only for these families, but for the great reputation which this country has had in the past and which, we trust, will grow in the future?

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I think that it might be convenient if I intervene at this stage, because I want to deal principally with the Soblen case. I understand that the Home Secretary is anxious to reply to that matter personally, although that, of course, will not conclude the debate on this part of the Bill. Other hon. Members concerned with the administration of the Aliens Restriction (Amendment) Act would be enabled to make their contributions.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Come (Mr. S. Silverman) has done a service, on this occasion in our annual review of the administration of the Aliens Order, by concentrating the attention of the Committee on what happened in the case of Dr. Soblen. As he said, or, at any rate, implied, this is a laboratory test of how the Aliens Order works, what are the powers of the Home Secretary, how they are exercised and how they ought to be exercised, and it is particularly by analysing what happened in this case that we can best see what is wrong with the present state of the law. I agree entirely with what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot) has said, that the time has arrived when, as the Guardian said this morning, a review of the whole administration of the powers of the Government over the lives of aliens is long overdue. It is overdue for revision and reform.
There is only one observation which my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne made with which I disagree, and that was in his opening statement, when he rather suggested that this was not the occasion to criticise the Home Secretary for his actions in this case. In my opinion, this is not only the occasion to criticise the Home Secretary for his conduct, but it is inevitable in discussing the case of Dr. Soblen that we should do so; and I think that we on these benches should be failing in our duty if we did not do so, and that for a variety of reasons.
There is no doubt that the whole of the tragic circumstances surrounding the


case of Dr. Soblen have caused throughout the length and breadth of the country not only very great concern but a very deep sense of humiliation and shame at what has occurred. Therefore, I make no apology for supplementing in some degree what my hon. Friend has said. I want, in particular, to deal with the extent to which the Home Secretary was motivated by pressure from the United States of America. After the decision had been taken, The Times, in a leading article on 1st September, said—and I agree with this:
… the decisions taken by Mr. Brooke have been very strongly guided by international considerations. Nobody wanted Dr. Soblen except the Americans. The question is, has the British Government in any way yielded to external pressure to the extent of bending the law? The answer as given by the High Court yesterday is no. But that is not the end of the business. The Government must, sooner or later"—
and I think that today is the occasion—
clear the air by explaining, from beginning to end, to Parliament and to the public, what exactly did happen.
If further confirmation of the necessity of that were required, I could read from a large volume of letters which I have received on this subject, but I will pick out only one, and I will not disclose the name of my correspondent except to say that he is a reader in divinity at one of our leading universities. He writes:
I write, with some competence as a moral theologian, to express a conviction of shame and alarm at this instance of thoroughly bad government which to my mind has left this nation polluted with guilt equivalent to that which attaches to politico-judicial murder. The fabric of law and justice notoriously suffers more damage from the exploitation of justice for inhuman ends than from gross violations of justice or law. A nation whose Home Secretary cannot, or dare not, act with some regard for grace, is on the way to being a pretty foul community in which to live.
One thing I find obvious from reading the law report is this. It seems clear from the judgment of Mr. Justice Stephenson, whose judgment was upheld by the Court of Appeal, that Dr. Soblen would probably have succeeded in his application for a writ of habeas corpus if the Home Secretary had produced the correspondence which had passed between Her Majesty's Government and the United States Government. In The Times of 8th August there apeared this paragraph:

An official of the American Embassy in London said last night that the political counsellor at the Embassy had made representations to the British Government about Dr. Robert Soblen, the convicted spy. The official said it had been represented 'that the United States would very much like to have Dr. Soblen returned to the United States'. The British Government had been requested to do everything possible to facilitate his speedy return.
The report concluded with these words:
In Washington, the State Department said it had emphatically reiterated to both Britain and Israel that the United States wanted Dr. Soblen returned to America.
The significance of that is that, if Dr. Soblen could have proved those facts, or even given prima facie proof of them, there might well have been a different outcome in the courts. It looks as though, if those facts had been before the court, Dr. Soblen would have succeeded in his contention that the deportation order was a sham, not bona fide, and that it was unlawful. For this reason, Dr. Soblen's advisers asked, first, the Treasury Solicitor to produce the correspondence. They then attempted to serve a subpoena on the Home Secretary to produce any correspondence he had had with the United States Government. The Crown, as it was, as a matter of strict law, perfectly entitled to do, claimed privilege.
I want the Home Secretary today to justify, if he can, that claim of privilege against the production of those documents. It seems quite evident from all one knows from both American sources and British sources that there was pressure by the United States Government on the Home Secretary to return Dr. Soblen to the United States. In fact, the American Press at the time was full of comments in that sense.

Mr. S. Silverman: I interrupt my hon. Friend only to say that, whatever the reasons, good or bad, for claiming privilege before the Court of Appeal, the question remains: is there any reason why the Home Secretary should claim privilege for that correspondence before this Committee?

Mr. Fletcher: I agree with my hon. Friend.
What has happened in the courts of law is one thing. The courts were concerned with a pure matter of law but, as the Press and public opinion know, that is not the end of the matter. We


have a duty to ventilate the question here and find out the full facts. There can be no justification for the Home Secretary refusing to tell us what representations were made to him. He may, of course, go on to say that any representations from the United States did not inflừence his mind and that his only reason for sending Dr. Soblen back was that he thought that it was essential for the health or security of this country. If he wants to do so, he may say that, and the House can make up its mind whether to believe him or not. But at this stage, we must, surely, know what representations were made by the United States.
4.45 p.m.
Mr. Justice Stephenson said in his judgment:
What I should find if the veil imposed by the claim for Crown privilege were removed. I know not".
The whole basis of the decision both in the High Court and in the Court of Appeal was based upon the absence before the court of certain relevant facts, and that absence was due to the wilful refusal of the Crown to produce the documents.
Since then, of course, Dr. Soblen has died. Nobody now can say that there is any danger in this matter. Unfortunately, whatever was in the Home Secretary's mind at the time has become academic. We are now having an inquest not into the death of Dr. Soblen, but into the conduct of the Home Secretary. In his own interests, in justice to himself and the Government, the right hon. Gentleman should give us the full facts and tell us what pressure was exercised by the United States.
Only a few days ago, the Foreign Secretary protested in the strongest possible terms both to the Hungarian and the Russian Government that a British subject had been sent by Hungary to Russia. Hungary may well be a satellite of the Soviet Union. Are we to be told by the Home Secretary that this country has now sunk into such shame and humiliation that we have become a satellite of the United States, as Hungary is a satellite of the Soviet Union, that we have to submit to the dictates of the United States in matters involving human freedom and liberty and some of the most cherished traditions of our country? If

there were no representations from the United States Government, or if they were innocuous, let us be told. Let us hear what was said and how cogent it was.
It may or may not be right, if there were representations, to take some notice of them. I contend that it would not be. I assert that in these matters, involving human liberty, it is far more important to be scrupulously fair to the individual than to placate, or to appear to placate, an ally, however powerful that ally might be. In matters of international law of this kind we should apply the same rules about asylum and about the strict observance of what is and what is not an extraditable offence to all persons regardless of their nationality.
The point can be tested in this way. Is it conceivable that, if an American spy had been convicted in Russia, had escaped and had landed in this country, we should have sent him back to Russia? Is it even conceivable that, if Dr. Soblen had been a Cuban, he would have been sent back to Havana? There must be absolute impartiality of treatment in these matters.
There is something else which worries me. Even though the Home Secretary may have thought—I cannot conceive how he could—that the security of this country or order and good government in this country were in some way jeopardised by the continued presence of Dr. Soblen here, why was it necessary to send him to the United States? The Czechoslovak Government had promised him a visa.
With my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) I had been to see the Home Secretary. We urged the Home Secretary, on grounds of common decency and humanity, to come to the conclusion that, if he must ultimately deport Dr. Soblen, instead of sending him back to the United States where he would have been pilloried, imprisoned—nobody knows what might have happened to him—the proper course consistent with all our obligations of national security, and certainly consistent with humanity, would be to send him to Czechoslovakia, which was willing to receive him. But that advice was ignored. I am very doubtful whether, as a matter of law, the right to deport


under Article 20 carries with it the right to deport to a particular place.
It is for these reasons that so many of us on this side feel that the Home Secretary's conduct in this case cannot pass without the deepest possible censure. I do not go as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne and say that the state of the law, unfortunate though it has been proved to be, is such that we ought at this stage, to withhold the renewal of this Act for a further period, because that would produce a situation in which there were no aliens regulations at all.
In my opinion, the Home Secretary's conduct has given rise to a deep sense of shame and humiliation throughout the country. There has been widespread protest, regardless of party. I think that the right hon. Gentleman stands convicted before the tribunal of humanity for unnecessary, unjust, callous and inhuman 'administration of the aliens legislation which he is asking us to renew. It may be necessary that the House should renew the Act. I only regret that we cannot have a more sensitive and more humane Home Secretary to administer it.

Mr. Niall MacDermot: Anyone concerned with the administration of the law and anyone who cares for civil liberties in this country must be profoundly disturbed by the state of our aliens legislation. That disturbance has been increased recently by the facts of the Soblen case, which have been so movingly and eloquently stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). The crux of that case, as disclosed by the Court of Appeal, was that Soblen was unable to adduce any evidence—it is difficult to see how he could have done—to rebut the evidence, contained in the Home Secretary's affidavit, that when he made his decision to deport he did so in the bona fide belief that it was conducive to the public good.
We live in an age when, I suppose, more inhumanity has been done by man to man in the exercise of arbitrary power in the bona fide belief that it was conducive to the public good than at any other time in human history. I do not suggest that those who administer our

laws here do so with the inhumanity displayed in our lifetime in other countries. What I do say is that, if we care about our civil liberties, we should so frame our laws that every possible safeguard is made available in order to ensure that those powers are not wrongly administered. In a case like the Soblen case, to put the onus on one man, on a Minister to make a decision without there being any right of appeal or any procedure for formal representations by the person concerned cannot be considered to be a procedure which has adequate safeguards.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot) drew attention to provisions in the laws of other countries in operation today. I merely wish to call attention to a provision in another branch of our law in similar circumstances. In addition to the power of deportation, the Home Secretary has power to cancel the certificate of naturalisation of a person naturalised as a British subject. I do not know whether the present Home Secretary has ever had to exercise or consider that power. I imagine that he has not. But he can refer the question whether he should exercise that power to a tribunal presided over by a person holding, or having held, high judicial office—in practice, a judge of the High Court.
What is more important is the fact that in every such case the person concerned has the right to demand that the Home Secretary shall refer the matter for inquiry to such a tribunal. After the war, I was concerned in one of the rare cases referred to this tribunal. This procedure has great advantages. In these cases, as in the cases we are considering now, one of the main reasons which may lead the Home Secretary to wish to cancel the certificate is security. This is not a matter which can be easily litigated, as it were, in open court.
This tribunal sits in camera. The Crown is able to present, and does present, within the privacy of that tribunal the evidence and state the reasons why it considers that the person concerned is no longer fit to be a British subject and should once again become an alien. That person knows the case which he has to meet and is able to call evidence before the tribunal in order to rebut the Crown's evidence if he can. The tribunal itself


has all the powers of the High Court to compel the attendance of witnesses, subpoena documents, and so forth.
It seems to me that a tribunal such as this would be eminently suitable in assisting a Home Secretary to make a decision in a case of this kind and in ensuring that the person concerned had all the rights and powers which he should have of being able to represent his case and to bring forward all the evidence which might assist his case.
Once again, we are being asked to extend the powers under our aliens legislation for another year. I suppose that it is inevitable that the Home Secretary will again get those powers. But, in view of the great increase in public concern on this subject as it has developed this year, I hope that we shall at last have an undertaking from the Home Secretary that if the powers are extended he will agree to a comprehensive review of our aliens laws.

5.0 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Henry Brooke): Before I reply in some detail to the unique but tragic case of Dr. Soblen, I should like to say a word or two in reply to what was said by the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray), whose speeches I have learned to listen to with interest and respect, even when I do not agree with his views.
The criteria governing the grant of political asylum, which was the issue in the case which he raised, have been fully explained to the House more than once. I should like to summarise them. Political asylum is granted only when there are strong grounds for believing that the life or liberty of the applicant would be in serious danger if he returned to his country, or that he would be subjected to persecution of such a nature as to render life insupportable.
In the case to which I feel fairly sure the hon. Gentleman was referring, there was no evidence that the young man in question had any claim to political asylum. He was given every opportunity to make his case fully, but his history disclosed no sign of persecution in his own country. Indeed, it seemed clear that by Polish standards he was tolerably well off in that country. His earnings were a good deal better than

the local average. He had secured without difficulty, a passport to come to England. He had never taken part in any political activity. The simple fact was that he would have liked to join his brothers here because he did not particularly care for conditions in Poland and he thought that he would have better prospects here.

Mr. S. Silverman: What is wrong with that?

Mr. Brooke: That is a perfectly reasonable view to hold; but these are not grounds for political asylum. If permission were allowed for these reasons, a large number of aliens would qualify to come here.

Dr. Bray: I believe that although the words "political asylum" were mentioned initially, the application to the Home Office was put in quite general terms, that here was a human problem of a young man wanting to stay and asking what the Home Office could do about it. For the right hon. Gentleman simply to answer on grounds of technicality concerning political asylum is inadequate. Secondly, is not a spell in Siberia at least some indication of political pressure on this young man and his family?

Mr. Brooke: I respect all this and I know that, as the hon. Member said, the case has not had the same end as the Soblen case. With the best will in the world, however, it is not practicable or possible to admit to this country all the aliens who would wish to come here because they think that life would be more pleasant here than in their own country, a view which is probably reasonable for them to hold. Exceptions are made where there are strong compassionate reasons, in a case, for example, of young children or elderly parents, but there can be no question of admitting all who would like to come.
I am sorry to have to say this, and I trust that the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) will not condemn me as inhumane for saying it, because it has been said by many Home Secretaries in the past and it would be for the House of Commons to declare itself if it wished a complete change to take place and for there to be an open door for everybody. We have to be guided


by certain principles and we do our best, as our predecessors have done.

Mr. Paget: I always find this difficult to understand. Obviously, we cannot admit all aliens, but when there is a young man who has relations here and who has somewhere here to live, and remembering, to put it in the crudest terms, that every young man we have costs us eighteen or twenty years of maintaining, feeding and educating—. when we have a ready-made article which somebody else has fed and educated and is here and ready to work here for his productive life, why should we throw away a bargain of that sort for no reason at all?

Mr. Brooke: I appreciate what the hon. and learned Member said and it sounds persuasive. The Home Secretary must, however, bear in mind, not that there is one case, but that there are thousands of cases. If one accepts the new principle which the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has outlined, it is not simply an addition of one to the entry of aliens. It would be, literally, an addition of thousands. One must take into consideration whether it is right from the country's point of view to open the doors as widely as that would involve. I accept at once from the hon. and learned Member that we ought not to close our minds about these things.

Mr. S. Silverman: Or our doors.

Mr. Brooke: These are matters of judgment. I accept that we may be entering the Common Market, about which I shall say a word presently, but I am bound to advise the Committee that if we were to open the doors as the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) has just suggested, it is not simply a matter of admitting one or two cases in which there are strong compassionate grounds. It would run into thousands, and tens of thousands, immediately.

Mr. Paget: I am a Huguenot myself. We have had thousands of people coming at various times from regimes where they were not in danger, but were oppressed and unhappy. The arrival of these skilled people generation after generation has been one of the greatest assets of our

nation. The weavers of the West Country, the East Anglians and the wool trade all come from these oppressed people who came here and enormously added to our community. If we can get thousands of such good bargains, what good luck it is.

Dr. Bray: Can the Home Secretary say how many thousands of people would be involved and what evidence he has for such a figure? What degrees of closeness and kinship are involved and how many would there be in each degree of closeness or kinship? Why cannot we know the rules under which these compassionate cases are judged—or are there any rules?

Mr. Brooke: Yes. About 16,000 people come to this country and stay for permanent residence each year. Obviously, I cannot answer the hypothetical question of how many more people would take advantage of the facility if we announced new rules on the lines suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton that every young man with education and qualifications should be free to come.
If we were to do that, I very much doubt whether it would assist the kind of person that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West has in mind. If I remember rightly, that individual obtained permission from the Polish authorities to come here for a holiday visit. If it were known that anybody who came for that reason into this country were to be allowed to remain here permanently by the British authorities, I expect that a very different view would be taken by the authorities of Poland and certain other countries about enabling people to leave and come here for a visit.
I should like the hon. Member and the Committee to know that I do my very best to judge these cases, especially borderline cases, on their merits. My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State and I look at these cases. We seek to reach a right decision and one that will be defensible to the House of Commons. It would, however, be a wholly different policy if we were to go so far as to adopt what the hon. and learned Member for Northampton has suggested.
As the hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West will discover one day, thirty or forty years' hence, if he becomes a member of a Government, one has to consider the individual case bearing in mind what may flow from it in the sense of generalisation, because a set of criteria cannot be applied to one case if one is not prepared to treat other possible applicants on the same basis.

Mr. S. Silverman: How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile the defence of the principle which he has just enunciated with the defiance of that principle which the Government propose to undertake under the Common Market?

Mr. Brooke: If I might proceed to the next part of my speech, I will deal with some of these matters.
The hon. and learned Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot), who asked about our deportation arrangements, courteously informed me that he had to leave and would not be in his place when I replied. The hon. and learned Member did less than justice to the safeguards which at present exist against unreasonable deportation. Deportation is hedged about with a number of these safeguards and they are none the less effective for being non-statutory. It was in 1956, I believe, that my then predecessor informed the House of Commons of the arrangement whereby aliens who had been in this country for more than two years, and whom it was proposed to deport, might make representations to the Chief Magistrate against the proposal to deport, with certain exceptions that, I would have judged, the Committee would regard as reasonable.
The exceptions are, those whom it is proposed to deport on security grounds; those whom it is proposed to deport because the court itself has so recommended; and, thirdly, those whom it is proposed to deport because they have got into this country illegally. But all other aliens, when they have been here for more than two years, are enabled to make representations to the Chief Magistrate.
The Committee may care to know what the experience has been. Since these arrangements have been the practice, 96 aliens could have made representations. Only 50 of them availed

themselves of the opportunity. In 37 of those 50 cases the Chief Magistrate concurred in the proposal to deport. In not one case has the Home Secretary proceeded with deportation where the Chief Magistrate did not concur. Of course, it is common knowledge also that a deportation may be stayed by habeas corpus proceedings, but I do want to say, in the light of what the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich put before the Committee, that those arrangements with regard to the opportunity for deportees to make representations are most meticulously adhered to. I have never heard any complaint that anybody who was entitled under the arrangements announced to the House to make representations and state his case to the Chief Magistrate has been debarred from doing so.
I know that it is argued that the power of deportation is not needed—the power of deportation in the hands of the Home Secretary. It is so argued because it is contended that if an alien has done anything worthy of deportation it should be possible to bring him before a court and obtain a recommendation on a conviction, but, in fact, that argument does not take account of a number of classes where the Home Secretary—any Home Secretary—has to consider whether it would be right to deport an individual on the ground that his presence here is not conducive to the public good.
Perhaps the most obvious case is the foreign intelligence agent. If an alien in this country is discovered to be an intelligence agent of a foreign Power or to be engaged in subversive activities of some sort, expulsion is the proper and, sensible course. Court proceedings would be quite inappropriate in a case like that. Then there is the case where an alien has been refused leave to land and the company which brought him here, whether a shipping company or an airline, refuses or neglects to comply with a direction to remove him. In that case he can be got rid of only by deportation. There is no question at all that he is here illegally.
Then there is the third type of case. I do not think that the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich had taken this kind of case into account, the sort of case like that of the man Rockwell, a Fascist, who


got into this country because he succeeded in slipping through the net. He arrived here before we had any reason whatever to imagine that he was proposing to come. Being what he was, and what he avowedly was, and his purposes being what they avowedly were, I cannot think that anybody in this country would take the view that his presence here was other than objectionable, and yet, if we had to go through court proceedings, it would not have been possible for me to deal with Rockwell as I was able to deal with him—

Mr. S. Silverman: Why?

Mr. Brooke: —with, so far as I could judge, virtually the unanimous assent of the whole country. Because he would have had to be brought before the court; he could not be charged with any offence: he had not done anything for which he could be convicted here. But it simply was not conducive to the public good that a man of the character he was, with the objects that he declared he had, should stay in this country.

Mr. Paget: Could not the court have decided?

Mr. Brooke: I do not see how a court could have decided whether a man had committed an offence because this man had not committed an offence, and it is extremely difficult to bring the court in. Either a court is a judicial body or it is not a judicial body. All I am seeking to explain to the hon. and learned Member is that there is a number of classes of case where the court procedure is not appropriate, or, at any rate, not easy, because the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich had been seeking to argue that all these difficulties could be cleared away if every person whose presence here the Home Secretary adjudged prima facie to be not conducive to the public good could be brought before the court.

Mr. S. Silverman: The right hon. Gentleman has cited the case of Rockwell. What would have been the harm if this gentleman had been allowed to make any case that he thought he had before the Chief Magistrate at Bow Street under the other part of the regulations? If he had no case, he could not have made one. The Home Secretary has power to detain him till the application

has been heard, so that he could have done no harm. Was he afraid that the Chief Magistrate at Bow Street might perhaps not agree with him?

5.15 p.m.

Mr. Brooke: Of course, this case did not come within the arrangements which had been announced to the House. I think that the issue is quite clear between us. The hon. Member is arguing that these powers ought not to be in the sole discretion of the Home Secretary. He is arguing—the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich was arguing before—that all these matters should go to the court, and I have been giving a series of cases where the solution offered by the hon. and learned Member for Ipswich would not work as easily and as straightforwardly as he was seeking to persuade the Committee that it would.

Mr. MacDermot: I think that the Home Secretary has misunderstood the argument of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot). I did not understand him to be arguing that there should be appeal to an ordinary court of the land, but that there should be some appellate procedure. He instanced examples in other countries, which were of tribunals comparable to the one which I referred to in the case of denaturalisation.

Mr. Brooke: I am quite prepared to answer that case. I quite appreciate that there could be various kinds of tribunals, but I think that the Committee must decide in the end whether it really thinks that when somebody has landed in this country unlawfully he should not be removable till he has been through some form of tribunal. The Committee must decide, in the end, whether it thinks that somebody who is a security risk here, who has been picked up as a foreign intelligence agent, should not be removable on the ipse dixit of the Home Secretary, but should go before some tribunal—it certainly could not sit in public—and he should be detained here till that tribunal has pronounced.
This is a tenable view. I am not seeking to exclude it from all consideration. I do not think that it is a sound way of doing things. I think that we do better to stick to what we have been doing in the past. I must say that, looking over the records, considering a


number of different cases which have come up, the number on Which my predecessors have been challenged has been remarkably few.
But may I come to the next point I wanted to make? I myself dislike the idea of this Act being prolonged by the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill from year to year. It is quite true that on this occasion it has afforded an apt opportunity for a debate about Dr. Soblen and other related matters. Nevertheless, I accept that it would be more desirable if we could get rid of this year-by-year procedure and if Parliament could put on the Statute Book permanent legislation.
I hope that the Committee will agree with me that the time to do that would be when it is known whether or not we are going into the European Economic Community. Quite clearly, any legislation which we pass now might be proved to be inappropriate within a year or two when we saw all the obligations and conditions into which our legislation would have to be fitted under the Treaty of Rome.
Neither hon. Members opposite nor I can say if, or when, we shall be entering the European Economic Community, but my view is that the right time for the Government to bring forward proposals and for Parliament to examine them in detail is when we know whether or not we are entering the Community, and, if we are entering it, When we know what the Community's regulations on this matter of the entry of aliens will be.

Mr. Fletcher: Am I right in thinking that the Home Secretary is now saying that we may not know for another two years or so whether we shall be going into the European Community?

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman cannot catch me that way. If he knows what date a decision on this may be taken, this is secret information which I think that he should disclose to the Committee, because I certainly have not got it.
All that I am seeking to say now is that having continued for a considerable number of years to prolong this Act year by year through the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, the appropriate time to alter the system and to give the House

the opportunity to examine permanent legislation through all detailed stages should be when we know whether or not Britain is to be part of the European Economic Community.
I wanted an opportunity to say this to the Committee, because I think that it is important, and I am not seeking to use it as a special argument for continuance for this year—I should argue on those grounds, in any case—but I would not like the Committee to believe that I, as Home Secretary, would be content for this procedure to go on indefinitely. I accept all that has been said about its being desirable at a reasonably early date for Parliament to have an opportunity to examine the provisions of new legislation in detail in the way that the House normally does.

Dr. Bray: Will the Home Secretary offer the House the prospect of a review of the administrative procedures within the Home Office affording in practice the kind of procedure for which we have been asking, namely, a tribunal to which he could himself refer cases and where aliens could be properly represented in pleading their case?

Mr. Brooke: I do not think that it would be right at this time to make new departures of that kind and, frankly, I am not very impressed by the various proposals to take responsibility off the shoulders of the Home Secretary answerable to Parliament and transfer them to some outside body. I know that it is awkward for the Home Secretary to have to decide these things, but my own judgment is that the will of this House is more likely to be done if the Home Secretary, answerable to this House, has direct power and direct responsibility for reaching decisions. But the principles on which he reaches those decisions should be debatable at any time, and so long as I am Home Secretary I should be very pleased indeed to seek to explain and defend them.
I now want to reach the important case of Dr. Soblen—a unique case I believe and trust it will prove to be. I hope that the House will allow me to run over some of the facts of the case because it is desirable, I think, that they should be collected and on the record. Dr. Soblen was an American citizen. He had been naturalised in 1947. A charge was made


against him in the United States alleging that he had conspired to deliver certain information to the Russians. He was convicted in July, 1961, of this conspiracy and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released on bail pending appeal. The final decision of the courts in his case was the decision on 25th June, 1962, by the Supreme Court of the United States, which finally rejected the Motion on his behalf.

Mr. S. Silverman: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will not object to my reminding him that what he has just said might be regarded as a little ambiguous outside this House. He said that Dr. Soblen was convicted by the court in 1957. I know what the right hon. Gentleman means and that that is right, but people outside might think that the charge against him was on something done in 1957. That is not true. The conviction was in 1957 but the offence with which he was charged was in 1942.

Mr. Brooke: If I may get these dates quite right, the conviction was not in 1957 but in 1961, and the acts with which he was charged were committed in 1944 and 1945. Those are the facts.
On the day that the Supreme Court rejected the motion on his behalf, he broke his bail and, later in the day, after the Supreme Court judgment, he flew off to Israel, using his brother's passport. On 1st July, the Israeli authorities sent him back by air to the United States. The aircraft was due to stop for a short while at London Airport. Before reaching London Airport, he cut his wrists and stabbed himself in the stomach and, on compassionate grounds, to save his life which otherwise would have been in grave danger, he was taken off the aircraft and taken to hospital. He had no leave to land. He was refused permission to land. But I trust that the whole Committee will think that it is entirely right that he should have been taken off the aircraft in those circumstances and taken to hospital. In my view, that saved his life. As soon as he was fit to traved directions were given to the airline to remove him in the aircraft in which he arrived. It did not do it, and, in consequence, being fit to travel, he was detained as an alien to whom leave to land was refused. He applied for a writ of habeus corpus on the ground that he had been given leave to land.
The court rejected that application, holding that he had never been given leave to land. He applied to me for political asylum, and I refused that request because his case did not fulfil the normal criteria for political asylum. I remember answering questions in the House on the Thursday before the Recess on that very matter. I took the view from the very start, and quite independently of any views that the American authorities might hold or express, that my right course in the circumstances was to seek to restore the situation to what it had been while he was on the aircraft and before he managed to land illegally in this country through self-inflicted wounds. He applied to the Czech authorities for leave to go to Czechoslovakia and he obtained a visa to go to that country. But throughout I took the view—and I am responsible to the House for this—that the right course in the circumstances was, as I said, for me to seek to restore the situation as it existed before Dr. Soblen was taken off the aircraft, and every one of my actions was actuated by that single purpose from which I never deviated.

5.30 p.m.

Mr. S. Silverman: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why he thought it was vitally necessary not merely that the man should not remain in this country, but to restore the position as it was before Dr. Soblen stabbed himself, bearing in mind that he could not restore that position anyhow, that he never did restore it and that even on his own showing the only interest which this country had in the matter was that Dr. Soblen should not stay here?

Mr. Brooke: I will certainly deal with that point before I sit down, because it is important.
I was seeking to give the sequence of events. With my authority, an immigration officer gave directions to the El Al Airline to take him to the United States of America. I do not know what El Al would have done, but it became perfectly clear that the Israeli Government had laid it down that their airline was not to take him to the United States.
On 11th August, as my efforts to restore the situation through that original direction had failed, with my authority the immigration officers gave a new


direction to the Israeli airline to take Dr. Soblen to the United States by a particular flight. These powers are all given to me under Article 8 of the Order. That particular flight to which the direction applied was cancelled. I had tried time after time to use my powers under Article 8 to the utmost in order to get the airline to take him to the United States, thus restoring the position. I had failed in that respect, and only after these repeated efforts did I fall back on the only other course open to me and made a deportation order.
I quite appreciate that during this debate a criticism has been expressed of the state of the law and of my conduct, and I quite accept that there are two different issues here. But as regards my conduct, I think I am entitled to bring to the notice of the Committee what was said by the Court of Appeal when Dr. Soblen, having gone to the court against my deportation order and having failed, went to the Court of Appeal. That was the last occasion when his case was heard in court. I trust that the Committee will forgive me if I read one or two passages here; I am on my defence and I think that I am entitled to do so.
The Master of the Rolls, giving judgment in the Court of Appeal, said:
And it seems to me that all that the Home Secretary has done by the deportation order is to see that his original refusal of leave was implemented.… He might well think it not conducive to the public good that a person should be able to enter this country in such a way and to stay here.
He went on:
I see no ground for attributing to the Home Secretary anything in the nature of a sham or want of bona fides or any unlawful or ulterior purpose.
That was the point raised by the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot). He questioned whether it was really conducive to the public good that illegal immigrants should not be allowed to stay here. If it is not conducive to the public good that we should enforce the law in that respect, then I say that it will be very difficult that anything can be judged to be conducive to the public good, because that is as clear a case as there could be. I want to read one or two further quotations.

Mr. Fletcher: Would the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to say why he deemed it to be conducive to the public good to send Dr. Soblen back to the United States of America and not to let him go to Czechoslovakia? Would he not agree that in not considering that alternative he completely disregarded the medical and humanitarian grounds?

Mr. S. Silverman: Before the right hon. Gentleman resumes his speech, and on the same point, may I put this to him? He said just now that he had exhausted without success all his powers under Article 8. But if he had allowed the man to be taken to Czechoslovakia, would not that have been an adequate exercise of his powers under Article 8?

Mr. Brooke: I had exhausted my powers under Article 8 to restore the status quo. That is what I was seeking to do. I will come to the hon. Gentleman's question later.
Lord Justice Pearson, in his judgment, said:
The intended deportation appears to be in every way a genuine deportation, not a sham, and not a device for bringing about an unlawful extradition.
I should like to read a longer passage from Lord Justice Donovan, whom some of us remember as a colleague in the House. He said:
What evidence is there for the allegation that the Home Secretary never genuinely came to the conclusion that it was conducive to the public good to deport the applicant? Here the applicant relies again on the facts I have already narrated. But the evidence the other way is indeed formidable. In the first place he gained admittance by a stratagem which relied for its success on the humanity of our immigration officials. The reliance was justified in the event and the success of the stratagem has produced for the home authorities an extremely troublesome problem, and, as it now transpires, substantial expense for the taxpayer. I venture to think it would be the duty of the Home Secretary in the interests of the public to do whatever he could to prevent such a stratagem from achieving its ultimate end, lest its success should set a precedent for others to copy. Next, if country A is an ally of country B, each of them may well think it conducive to the public good of their citizens that they should co-operate to see that a national of one of them who gives defence informaton to a common potential enemy should not escape the consequences inflicted upon him by due process of the law. Finally, if the real object of the Home Secretary were simply surrender, his actions have been strangely at variance with that purpose, for such purpose could have been effected weeks


ago immediately upon the making of the deportation order. Instead the Home Secretary stayed his hand in order that the applicant should have the opportunity of challenging his action in court, just as he stayed the operation of the previous order of expulsion under Article 8 when he learned that the applicant wished to contest it by means of an application for a writ of habeas corpus. I reach the conclusion, therefore, that there is no evidence which would justify the court forming even a provisional opinion that the Home Secretary has not genuinely deemed it to be conducive to the public good that the applicant should be deported. I have gone into the matter in this detail because I think that when such an allegation of bad faith is made and the liberty of the subject is involved, the court should examine the grounds of the allegation with the help of such material as is before it, and drawing any reasonable inferences of fact therefrom. The alternative would be to say that the claim for privilege made by the Crown precludes a really satisfactory inquiry and therefore none should be attempted. This, I think, would be wrong, but since this allegation has been made, I think it is proper to say not merely that it fails, but that there appears to be no valid ground of criticism of anything the Home Secretary or his officers have done in this case.
I am content to rest my personal defence on what has been said in the Court of Appeal, but I have been asked why I was not willing to make some other kind of directional order that would have enabled Dr. Soblen to go to Czechoslovakia or to Israel.
I came to the conclusion—and I take the full responsibility for this on myself —that the right thing to do and the thing which the country would wish me to do was not to seek to change the course of events through the chance of Dr. Soblen having gained unlawful entry into this country through self-inflicted wounds. It appeared to me that the one course which I could defend against all criticism was to restore the position as it existed before that. I considered that my proper course was to see that he resumed the journey which his act of self-mutilation had interrupted.
The United States was the country of which he was a national. It was the only country obliged by international law to receive him. He had already been on his way there. It seemed to me to be the natural course for a British Home Secretary to restore the position as it had existed. I am not entitled to use the deportation power solely to return a fugitive criminal to his country's justice, but equally I would say to the Committee

that I know of no obligation on me so to use it as to enable a fugitive criminal to escape justice.
Hon. Members have asked whether the law is satisfactory. In my view, it is right and unavoidable that the Home Secretary should have these powers, invidious and unpleasant powers as they are to have to exercise. I do not see any suitable alternative to putting this directly on the shoulders of the Home Secretary.
I must frankly say that I never had any reason to think of Dr. Soblen as a dangerous man. I never believed it when I read in the papers that he had precious information which he wanted to take behind the Iron Curtain or that it was most important for information reasons that he should get back into the hands of the Americans. I never believed anything of that kind. It might have happened that way, but I do not believe it did in this case.
My action was perfectly simple. It was—I can only say this to the Committee in all sincerity—actuated by a sheer and unqualified desire to restore the position to what it was before Dr. Soblen gained unlawful entry into this country by self-inflicted wounds.

Mr. S. Silverman: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what representation was made to him by the United States Government? This is the one salient fact, and it seems to be the all-important fact that nobody knows and that the right hon. Gentleman has never told. He has not dealt with it in his speech now. Will he tell us what the United States Government said to him? If the Court of Appeal had known that, it might have come to a different conclusion. Let us know.

Mr. Brooke: No suggestion whatever was made by the United States Government that they had any right to demand Dr. Soblen's return.

Mr. Silverman: That begs the question.

Mr. Brooke: The hon. Gentleman and I may quite often be debating these Home Office matters. I have not done it before. However, he will find that I am anxious to give complete answers if he will not interrupt me.

Mr. Paget: Mr. Paget rose—

Mr. Brooke: Might I just answer the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne first? There was never any suggestion whatever by the United States Government that this was an extraditable offence or that they had the right to demand Dr. Soblen's return. It is quite true that through diplomatic channels they let us know that they would like to have him back. But that did not weigh with me. That did not determine my actions. From the very beginning when I spoke in this House on 2nd August, by which date, if I remember rightly, no communications whatever had been received from the United States Government, I indicated to the House the course which I thought right to follow and which I pursued without deviation.

Mr. Fletcher: Does the Home Secretary really not now realise that what he has, in fact, done has been to extradite a fugitive criminal for something which is a non-extraditable offence? Does he really think that that is something a Home Secretary ought to have done in the light of the condition of that man's health?

Mr. Brooke: If the hon. Gentleman will again read the judgments in the Court of Appeal he will find that this allegation was explicitly dealt with in them and refuted.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Paget: I feel that none of us who have heard the Minister's answer has had any impression other than that it was a profoundly unsatisfactory answer. When the right hon. Gentleman said that his defence was what had been said by the Court of Appeal, it would have been more convincing if he himself had not suppressed the evidence on which the Court of Appeal came to its decision. It was deciding as to whether this action was bona fide. It could not, as Mr. Justice Stephenson observed, decide that without knowing what the American correspondence was, and that American correspondence was suppressed. The right hon. Gentleman is not in a very good position to rely upon the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
The right hon. Gentleman has totally failed to tell us what British interest would have been harmed by sending this man, who was no danger to us, to of their strength and productivity and

Czechoslovakia instead of America. What British interest was served by this ignoring of the extradition law, because Dr. Soblen could not be extradited according to our law, this twisting of the Executive's right in order to serve the Americans as the Hungarians have just served the Russians?
Indeed, I am bound to say that at the time that this brave man was undergoing his agony—a man who, even if he were guilty, was guilty only of conveying information to an ally in wartime eighteen years previously, in a great struggle in which his race was so intensely involved; that is all he was ever charged with—I could not help feeling that the right hon. Gentleman was lucky that he was the man he is, for anybody else in his shoes would have felt bitterly ashamed of himself. I do not even really blame the Home Secretary for having behaved in this way, in which I think that probably most of us expected that he would. I blame mostly the Prime Minister for having appointed such a man to such an office.
I now turn to wider questions on this Act First, what is our attitude to he with regard to foreigners who want to come into this country? In all conscience, we are the great mongrels of the world. We have been the freest country in Europe for generation after generation, and we have profited by the oppression of Europe. Generation after generation, the ancestors of many of those now sitting here—the Huguenots were my ancestors—came here to enrich our nation and to enrich our breed. We have got that benefit because we were the most liberal nation in Europe, the nation which those who preferred freedom to oppression came to join, and we were the beneficiaries.
Why should we depart from that noble tradition? I am not saying that one can accept every alien who comes. Maybe that is a result of the Welfare State. Once people are provided with such valuable rights in a community as we have provided by our Welfare State, one cannot have one's doors fully open for everybody to come and take those benefits. But it is beyond imagination to understand why we should refuse those who come here to contribute, as did the young man referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough. West (Dr. Bray), at the height


who are people whom it would have cost us so many years, so much money, so much food and clothing in their unproductive ages, to train and keep.
I believe that our whole attitude towards this problem needs rethinking. There are three aspects we should consider. The first is the right to enter, and that includes what we have already referred to—political asylum. Why should that not be a right in law instead of a discretion? Why should not the courts decide this? It is a matter which they are perfectly capable of deciding. They decide the issue under the Extradition Act. If a man has the good fortune to be an absconding criminal, his claim to be a refugee can be judged by a court. But if no crime is alleged against him, then he is only at the mercy of the Home Secretary, who need give no kind of a reason. Why should there not be access to the courts for the man who makes this claim for asylum even though no extradition proceedings have been brought against him?
Secondly, what are the rights of the alien while he is here, while he is lawfully amongst us in our community? Why should he not enjoy the rights of everybody else? Registration has gone. There may possibly be a condition of employment, but that is a matter which operates through the Ministry of Labour. None the less, that man, while he is here, is subject to arbitrary arrest on a charge which need not be given to him. He is not allowed to know why he is arrested. He can be held indefinitely in prison if there is no country prepared to accept him. He can be arbitrarily detained. He is, in fact, completely rightless.
I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the relevant paragraph in the Declaration of Human Rights to which this country has now subscribed. Article 7 says:
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.
But the alien resident here is entitled to no protection from this—not even to know why he is arrested. Everyone should have the right to trial by the competent national tribunals, and we ask for that to extend to aliens in this country as well.
Article 9 of the Declaration says:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest detention or exile.
Why do we have to maintain a situation in such flagrant contradiction of our obligations?
I refer now to a law even more ancient than the Declaration of Human Rights—the Law of Exodus, which says:
One law shall be to him that is home-born, and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.
I am not a fundamentalist. Many of these ancient laws refer to health conditions of that time. But when we come to moral precepts I would say that such precepts that have so marvellously stood the test of time as have the Commandments of God at least deserve some respect.
The next and possibly the most vital question is the case of the man who has come and has the right to stay. There are two classes here. First, there is the visitor. If he is to be ejected, why should not he be told why? There may be conceivable cases—such as the need to protect sources in security matters—in which he cannot be told, but they must be very very rare. Why should a man be denied a chance to answer what may be just a backstair report or, as happened on one occasion, know enough to point out that the case really concerns someone with a similar name?
Since we are only concerned in disembarrassing ourselves—that is the only thing we have no right to be concerned with—we have no right to punish people who have not been accused or tried. What right have we to deny them the right to go where they choose, provided that they are acceptable there and that they have the passage money. How have we the right to deny them that?
Secondly, there is the case of the permanent resident. He may be an alien who has come here as a baby. He may have seen no other land, have spoken no other language. His children are British and his wife is British. But arbitrarily, without explanation, that man can be arrested, removed from his family and most effectively exiled, having no other land that is his own. Is this just? Is it right that there should be this sort of lawless, arbitrary discretion?
Finally, I come to the question of naturalisation. Here again, I refer to the Declaration of Human Rights, Article 15 of which says:

"(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality."
Here I want to refer to a particular case. I will not name the gentleman. I will simply refer to him as Dr. A. He is Jewish and his wife is English.

The Temporary Chairman (Dr. Horace King): Order. I hope that the hon. and learned Member will not pursue the question of naturalisation, Which is not covered by the Act with which we are dealing.

Mr. Paget: With great respect, Dr. King, the Act deals with aliens. I am considering What ought to be the law. We are saying, "We will not give you the law you ask for, because we believe that there ought to be another law". With respect, Dr. King, I am fully entitled to say what I believe the law ought to be.

6.0 p.m.

The Temporary Chairman: With equal respect to the hon. and learned Member, there are other Acts which we will have an opportunity to discuss and which deal with the specific issue of naturalisation. What we are deciding is whether we give the Government the emergency power which they seek under the Act which we are now discussing.

Mr. Paget: Are we not at cross-purposes, Dr. King? This is not an Adjournment debate.

The Temporary Chairman: I hope that the hon. and learned Member does not wish to instruct me about what debate we are on.

Mr. Paget: In a debate which, in effect, is a Second Reading debate, surely one can deal with What the law ought to be.

The Temporary Chairman: I must insist. The hon. and learned Gentleman is attempting to show reasons why we should or should not extend the law, when we are discussing whether the law should be continued for a year. He is not permitted to review the whole of our legislation for aliens.

Mr. Paget: One of my reasons for saying that the law ought not to be continued is that it fails to provide a right for a hearing in a court. That we have discussed. It fails to provide the right of appeal to a court and it fails to accord with the Declaration of Human Rights and to provide a right to claim naturalisation. That is an omission which, in my submission, is wrong.
If you hold that that submission is wrong, Dr. King, then everything which has taken place in the debate so far is wrong. What we have been saying at every point is that the law is not good enough because it does not include what it ought to include. I shall not mention the Extradition Act, but I am saying that there ought to be a right to the process which is described in another Act. I am talking only of the access to it.

The Temporary Chairman: I must rule that the hon. and learned Member cannot advance that argument. All that has taken place in the debate so far has been in order. He is not in order—and it has been so ruled in previous similar debates, as hon. Members will recollect—in pursuing the issue of naturalisation on this Act.

Mr. Paget: I return to the case of Dr. A. and I raise it as to the manner in which an alien has been treated here. Dr. A. is a Hungarian. Before the war, he asked for leave to come here. He was married to an English wife. Those were the days of appeasement and he was refused permission. The result was that he and his English wife and their children went through the horrors of being Jews in a Fascist country during the war. He was one of the very few who survived. I believe that that refusal gave us some obligation towards him.
It is true that he joined the Communist Party in 1945, but the enemies of my enemy are my friends. This was the war and, considering the people who were our allies at that time, it was not an unnatural thing to do. He was expelled from the Communist Party in 1948 on the ground that he had an English wife and bourgeois connections. None the less, as a professional man, particularly as a lawyer, it was inevitable


that he should work with the Government and according to the laws of his country.
Before the revolution, he inquired of our consul whether, if he escaped, he would be welcome in this country. He was told that he would. The revolution brought his opportunity and he came to this country and he was duly accepted here as a permanent resident. Here he qualified as a solicitor, earning the highest reputation in his profession. He is known, among others, to the Attorney-General, who could not speak too highly of him. Now, contrary to the Declaration of Human Rights, he is denied the right to practise his profession and he is denied it because the Home Office refuses to give him any reasons for refusing his application for naturalisation.

The Temporary Chairman: The Temporary Chairman rose—

Mr. Paget: I am not talking about the law of naturalisation but about an executive act of the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary has every right, if he chooses, to give his reasons, but he has chosen not to do so. Could anything be worse?

The Temporary Chairman: I must ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to take note of what I said. He is in order in dealing with acts of the Home Secretary in so far as they are acts under the emergency powers which he takes under the Act which we are now discussing, but the hon. and learned Gentleman is not in order in discussing an act of the Home Secretary under any other Act, and the issue which he is raising comes under another Act.

Mr. Paget: This is a discretionary matter under the control of the Home Office. What security could possibly be involved by denying information such as this? It seems to me to be the gravest conceivable injustice. What we need is an alteration of the law. We need a new aliens law and I cannot see that that need is made greater or less by whether we join the Common Market or not. Our decision to join the Common Market is not a condition as to whether we give people justice. It is not designed to take from our freedom in those terms.
I would say, as I have pressed before, that the right way to deal with this

matter is to appoint a Select Committee to consider this social legislation, which is not a party matter, and to have a technical committee sitting parallel to it and advising the Select Committee. That technical committee would consist of representatives of the police and the Aliens Department of the Home Office. That was the procedure which we adopted with the Army and Air Force Acts, because they were non-partisan matters with which every hon. Member was concerned. The two Committees worked together, in parallel, and we produced an Act which was accepted by this House and by the Government without a single amendment, and after five years' operation required only trivial amendments.
It seems to me that that is the ideal procedure to deal with this sort of Act; and there is something else here that can serve as a guide because the Americans have done that very thing. In 1952 they brought out their Public Law No. 414, which governs and controls their public law here. It deals with the whole range of alien law, and it will be observed that amongst the rights granted to aliens is the right of naturalisation, unless cause can be shown why it should not be granted.
If the Americans can do that, why cannot we? Here is our first guide. We can adjust it to our conditions and our law. After all, we have a Government who dare not go to the country and who have not much to legislate about. Why cannot they get down to doing this useful job here and now?

Mr. Michael Foot: I wish to make a few brief comments on the right hon. Gentleman's speech. At the beginning of his speech he seemed to offer us one grain of comfort, but then he snatched it away almost a minute afterwards because he said that his inclination and desire was that we should not proceed according to the arrangements under this Measure that we are discussing today, and that if he had his way he would have regular legislation introduced, possibly along the lines which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has indicated, and that if it had not been for the awkward intervention of the fact that we might possibly be going into the Common Market we might have had the


necessary legislation brought forward on this occasion. That is what he appeared to suggest. At any rate, if he was not going to do it this year, he would be determined to do it next year.
Same of us who have attended previous debates on this Bill have a right to be a little sceptical about such an excuse, because there have been a number of Home Secretaries before the right hon. Gentleman who have suggested that they might like to see the law changed. Indeed, a year ago the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor said that he would like to have a change in the law, but he was waiting for the Common Market. I have no doubt that if we went back four or five years we should discover that previous Home Secretaries have said that they would look into the matter and would like to have general legislation instead of operating under these powers. I therefore do not think that it is excessively cynical to suggest that the right hon. Gentleman has shown his keenness to have a general overhaul of the legislation only because he knows that it is not immediately practicable.
I agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton. I do not see why we should not have an overhaul of the law, even though we may be going into the Common Market. This is an interesting development. All the defences which the Home Secretary makes for this kind of legislation will be pushed aside if we go into the Common Market, because under the Common Market all the necessary protections which the Home Secretary says he now needs and requires for removing people from the country and for guarding the nation's security will be abandoned.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to Fascists from America who came to this country and who were then removed under his power. Once we are in the Common Market, the right hon. Gentleman would not have the power to remove Fascists if they came from Germany and France—

Mr. S. Silverman: Or Italy.

Mr. Foot: —or Italy, and there are a few left there. This is one of the difficulties, and the right hon. Gentleman knows it perfectly well. As far as we can gather—I do not think that this

would come into operation immediately —the powers of the Home Office would be greatly reduced if we went into the Common Market. This is possibly a very good reason for going in, because I am in favour of reducing the powers of the Home Secretary.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. D. Foot) pleaded for some kind of appellant procedure, not necessarily an absolute court of law but some form of appellant procedure. In reply the right hon. Gentleman went through a number of cases, including the case to which I have referred, that of the removal of Rothwell, which he said would not be applicable, but, as has been said, I do not see why, even in the case of Rothwell, he should not have gone through the appellant procedure. It would not have done any harm. It might have illustrated the grounds on which people were being removed from this country. The Home Secretary's right to remove Rothwell would have been even better if we had a law against which Rothwell would have offended had he stayed here. If we had a law against racial discrimination, Rothwell would have offended against the law of this country. It would have done no harm if Rothwell shad gone before an appellant tribunal.
6.15 p.m.
I am not prepared to trust any Home Secretary, and particularly not this one, to exercise powers in relation to whom he will remove from this country on political grounds. I dare say the right hon. Gentleman is against all people who regard Communists as the same as Fascists. If we went through the list of famous people who came to this country and who would be in danger of removal, it would be a long and notable list, because the right hon. Gentleman is inclined to accept the general orthodox view of the time, and therefore people who offend against it would be inclined to be removed under the arbitrary power which the right hon. Gentleman possesses. I do not think that he has made out a case at all on these grounds.
When we come to the Soblen case, the right hon. Gentleman has gone further than fail to make a case in defence of his position. He has proved the case


against him, because what does he say? This is the kernel of his claim. He says that his sole ground of action in the Soblen case was to restore the situation that would have prevailed if Soblen had not cut his wrists and attempted to commit suicide and come into the country. That was the whole of his case. That is what he wanted to achieve, to resume the process that would have operated if Soblen had not entered the country because he had mutilated himself just before he came in. That was the right hon. Gentleman's case, and I do not think that he would deny it.
If we accept that that was the sole ground on which he acted, the Home Office was acting with even more fantastic pedantry than it does normally, because how great is the danger of people coming to this country after mutilating themselves to the point of actually risking death? It will not happen very often. It is not a great risk against which one has to guard. I suppose the right hon. Gentleman sat up all night during the Soblen case wondering whether, if he allowed Soblen to stay here, he would encourage a number of other people to cut their wrists and get themselves into a state in which they were gasping their last breath of life just to get into this country. Does the right hon. Gentleman really think there is a danger of that happening? That is what he was saying. When one examines what he meant by acting in accordance with what was conducive to the public good, that was the consideration in his mind. That is what he claims was in his mind.
If the right hon. Gentleman makes that his defence for his actions throughout the Soblen case, he must not be surprised if many people in the House of Commons, in the country and in the world do not believe him. He must not be surprised, because it is such a feeble claim.

Mr. S. Silverman: Nobody believes him.

Mr. Foot: My hon. Friend says that nobody believes the right hon. Gentleman, but I think that that might be a slight exaggeration. It is, however, very difficult for anybody to believe it.
The right hon. Gentleman attempted to finish his speech without answering

the question put to him by my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman). He did, however, eventually answer it, and the question was, what was the nature of the pressures and representations made by the United States Government to the British Government and to the Home Secretary? The right. hon. Gentleman's reply was that representations were made through diplomatic channels but that he did not take any notice of them. I wonder what reply he gave to the representations through diplomatic channels.

Mr. Silverman: He told them to mind their own business.

Mr. Foot: Did he say that? Who made the representations? Was it the Ambassador? Did he see the right hon. Gentleman. or did he send one of his emissaries? If it was none of their business, did the right hon. Gentleman tell them so in such forthright terms? Did he say "It is no business of yours. The less you say about it the better"? Would it not have been wise, in such circumstances, to advise the United States authorities that this is what was said, because what has been told to the world, and has been read out by my hon. Friend from the newspapers, is to the effect that they were told that formal representations had been made by the United States Government?
The right hon. Gentleman's answer was not given until the fag-end of his speech this afternoon. Why did he not issue a statement at the time? He had plenty of public relations officers. Why did he not issue a statement saying that this was no business of the United States Government, that they had been making representations but had no right to make representations and that he was not taking any notice of them? Why did he allow information about this formal demand by the American Government to go all round the world unanswered? Did he think that it would do no damage to this country? Did he not think that it would damage our reputation in almost every country in the world, when people would think that we were twisting the operation of our law to satisfy American demands? That was what was said in all the newspapers here—The Times, the Guardian and all the respectable newspapers—and what


appeared in the newspapers on the other side of the Atlantic. Did not the right hon. Gentleman think it part of his duty to kill such rumours when he could?
Instead of slipping it in in answer to my hon. Friend in this debate, if he had said this at the time, some people might have repudiated him. The American Government might have come back with further renresentations. We should like to know how many representations they made. We have not been told. How did they make their representations? What was the nature of them? What did they say?
The right hon. Gentleman's defence of this procedure was to say that he much preferred that the Home Secretary should explain all these matters in the House of Commons, and be answerable to it. He takes the view that that provides a better protection for the individual than do tribunals and courts of appeal. That is the main part of his case. But we know that in almost every case of a crucial nature—as in the Soblen case—the Home Secretary never gives the House the full story. The right hon. Gentleman has not given us the full story today. He would not claim that himself. If it had been left to him he would not have referred to the question. Does he not think that it is very dangerous for this country that suspicion should be spread abroad—and not denied at the time—that we have manipulated the law to suit a foreign Power?
Suppose that this had happened the other way round and that we had manipulated the law in order to satisfy the Soviet Government. Suppose that allegation was spread around. It could be very dangerous. But this danger is bound to recur so long as we retain this procedure, and especially this Home Secretary. The only way in which this kind of matter can be dealt with now is for the Minister, once a year, to give his answers, as he attempted to do today. If we had an appellate procedure, with a court, the Minister could have gone to the court and put the case for the Home Office. He could have said, "We cannot allow Soblen to stay in this country because that might encourage other people to do the same thing". That statement would have been laughed out of court, hut at least the right hon.

Gentleman would have been able to kill the rumour that pressure had been brought to bear by the United States Government.
Therefore, even after the debate is all over, and hon. Members have read what was said in the Court of Appeal, if we are not in full possession of the facts it is at least the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to tell the Committee how many representations were made by the Americans, what were their nature, how extensive they were and whether they were repeated. If he will not give us those facts, how can we judge whether any pressure was exerted upon him, especially when his own excuse for his action does not bear investigation. The right hon. Gentleman says that this is a unique case.

Mr. S. Silverman: We hope so.

Mr. Foot: We hope that it is a unique case. But if the right hon. Gentleman will look back to previous debates of this kind he will see that although there may not be a case with exactly the same particulars as this one, nevertheless in almost every awkward case the Home Office has been unable to make a defence and has fallen back upon the claim that it must be expected that it will exercise its powers properly.
The Committee should not tolerate giving such powers to one Minister. We should have the complete change in the law which has already been demanded by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee, and one of the best ways of ensuring that we get that change is to vote against the continuance of the powers. If there is such a powerful case against what the right hon. Gentleman has done—and there has been no speech in defence of the Government except from the Minister himself—the Committee should vote against the Government in order to register its feelings. It is no good saying that the whole law will be in appalling difficulties if we do that. The Government can bring along a new law very quickly if the House votes against them today.
If the Committee does vote against the Government the whole world will know that what we have been debating was the case of a dead man who had been treated unjustly and that the Committee registered its protest against what was


done in this case. That would be doing something to remove the stain on British justice to which my hon. Friend has referred.

Mr. Frederick Willey: I feel that the right hon. Gentleman ought to intervene again, taking advantage of the fact that we are in Committee. He has not done himself justice—and that is a very meagre task. The debate has been thoroughly unsatisfactory in two respects. This is a traditional occasion on which the radicalism of the House of Commons expresses itself. Throughout the debate, however, we have not had any representatives of the Liberal Party with us. That is a very sad thing.
The other melancholy thing about the debate is the fact that the right hon. Gentleman did intervene. I find this thoroughly melancholy. It is some time since I have taken part in these annual debates, but the tone and spirit of the contribution from the Government have been far worse than I have ever heard before. I thought that the reference to the Common Market was maladroit humour—but I know that the right hon. Gentleman has no sense of humour, so it must have been just maladroit.
Two cases have been raised, to which we could not have had more reactionary and unsympathetic replies. My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) raised a personal case concerning a family that he suggested should be brought together. In reply, the right hon. Gentleman said, "Life will not be insupportable to this young man if he remains in Poland. If I allow him to come here, how many more thousands of people will want to come here?" We were considering a family, and whether it was better to bring a family together. I have never heard a Home Secretary speak in such a callous and indifferent way. He says that we can bring these cases to the Floor of the House, and also discuss them in Committee, but that is the one thing that we cannot do. I am not questioning the right hon. Gentleman's judgment, because I do not know enough about the case, but I do criticise his attitude. He ought to consider whether three brothers should be brought together or not.
6.30 p.m.
Then there is the case of Dr. Soblen. The Minister has told the Committee that he was not under pressure, that it was his own responsible decision. I heard my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), who opened the debate, speak about inhumanity, shame, and humiliation. That still rests with me. The right hon. Gentleman has not discharged the responsibility which is on his shoulders. This was a case which demanded openly, overtly, patently sympathetic and humane consideration for someone whom the right hon. Gentleman regarded as unimportant. The right hon. Gentleman did not do that—

Mr. H. Brooke: Would the hon. Gentleman help the Committee by explaining exactly what he would have done, had he been Home Secretary?

Mr. Charles Loughlin: My hon. Friend would have given the man asylum.

Mr. Willey: I should have dealt with this matter overtly, patently sympathetically. I should have said, "Here is a man who is within sight of death, a man who has mutilated himself." Those are factors which would have called for asylum. The right hon. Gentleman—although I always accepted until today that he did—did not do this on grounds of public policy. He has denied that responsibility. He said that this man was of no importance, that he was not a security risk. But he refused the man the opportunity to go to Czechoslovakia.
This is upsetting. I think that the Home Secretary would concede that it is upsetting because, whatever the Administration, the Home Secretary should appear to be radical and liberal. That is what the right hon. Gentleman does not appear to be. His background is not that of a radical, or one who is sympathetic. The last time I debated with the right hon. Gentleman it was on the question of the universities. He can smile, as he was smiling on that occasion. But he was thoroughly unsympathetic. He has upset the universities. And now he smiles because he is thoroughly unsympathetic about these personal cases.
I am experienced in this difficulty. It is as though we were praying to annul an Order. We cannot vote against the Government and present them with chaos. What we can do—I think that my hon. Friends have done it—is to expose the lack of sympathy and humanity on the part of the right hon. Gentleman and hope that the Prime Minister will acknowledge that the person charged with the responsibility of the right hon. Gentleman's high office ought to act sympathetically and humanely, as well as responsibly.

Mr. Loughlin: If we are not able to vote against the Government on this issue because of the chaos which might ensue, will my hon. Friend tell me how we can redress the injustice? Can he tell me what is his point of view about that?

Mr. Willey: This is a difficulty which frequently faces us. As my hon. Friend knows—we do not dispute this—the Government rely on some provisions made in the Order. We have asked them time after time to review it. We have had promises. Perhaps if we go in or stay out of the Common Market, when that question is settled, the Government will do something. But we have our responsibility to see that we provide for orderly government. That is one of the functions of this Committee and of the House of Commons. But we can express, as we have done today, our criticism of the action of the Government.

Mr. S. Silverman: I have no desire to make another speech; perhaps I was rather too long at the beginning. But I think that I ought to say one more word before the Committee parts with the Amendment.
I am extremely grateful at having had the powerful and eloquent support of the official Opposition Front Bench. It is a long time since I had the Opposition Front Bench speakers supporting an Amendment of mine. I hope that they will have persuaded themselves to do something mare than speak, although I hope that I may, without appearing to be patronising, say how much I enjoyed and appreciated the speeches that were made.
At the beginning of the debate I was in some doubt whether it would be right—for reasons advanced from the Front

Bench—to carry my Amendment to a Division. I have no doubt now. Any deficiency in my argument was amply made up by the Home Secretary. I cannot understand the right hon. Gentleman. I understand him less at the end of his speech than I understood him at the beginning. Has he no bowels of compassion at all?
Throughout his speech the right hon. Gentleman made not one single reference to the medical condition of Dr. Soblen. I challenged him whether he knew. Professor Keith Simpson, the Home Office forensic expert, testified that the man's expectation of life was one month or two. I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he knew. He did not even bother to answer; from which I cart only infer that this was not one of the considerations which he took into account in making up his mind whether to restore the status quo ante bellum which is his defence for what he did.
Did not it matter? Does not it make any difference whether the man with whom he is dealing is a young, strong healthy man with all his life before him; or otherwise he has a couple of months of acute pain or misery in a prison hospital? Was not that a matter to take into account? By the right hon. Gentleman's own confession, it never entered his head.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about the legality of the matter and everything he could do under Article 8. I asked what prevented him, under Article 8, from allowing the man to go to Czechoslovakia, where he was willing to go, and where the Government were willing to receive him. I thought that the answer of the right hon. Gentleman would be that Soblen had deadly secrets which he was carrying about all over the world and which he was going to betray behind the Iron Curtain. But the right hon. Gentleman was frank enough to say that he did not believe anything of the kind. I hope that the newspapers which pilloried this man, with headlines about spies, agents, saboteurs and all the rest, will give equal publicity to the admission which the right hon. Gentleman has made at least on that point.
I know the difficulties. I know that there would be a difficult transitional period. I know, too, that a new law, a


different law, a better law, would have to be speedily passed if we got rid of this one. But even though the difficulties were infinitely greater than they are, I should not be content to allow these powers to continue in existence for a single day longer, when they can be exercised by a man like the present

Home Secretary, who has no common sense, no sense of justice and no compassion at all.

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Schedule:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 152, Noes 15.

Division No. 9.]
AYES
[6.39 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Gilmour, lan (Norfolk Central)
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.


Aitken, W. T.
Goodhart, Philip
Mills, Stratton


Allason, James
Goodhew, Victor
Neave, Alrey


Atkins, Humphrey
Gower, Raymond
Nlcholls, Sir Harmar


Awdry, Daniel (Chlppenham)
Grant-Ferris, R.
Osborn, John (Hallam)


Barber, Anthony
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)


Batsford, Brian
Gurden, Harold
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Bell, Ronald
Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Page, John (Harrow, West)


Bevins, Bt. Hon. Reginald
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)


Biffen, John
Harvie Anderson, Miss
Peel, John


Biggs-Davison, John
Hastings, Stephen
Perclval, lan


Bishop, F. P.
Hay, John
Prior, J. M. L.


Bourne-Arton, A.
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Proudfoot, Wilfred


Box, Donald
Hendry, Forbes
Pym, Francis


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Hiley, Joseph
Rawlinson, Sir Peter


Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin


Bryan, Paul
Hirst, Geoffrey
Rees, Hugh


Buck, Anthony
Hobson, Sir John
Renton, Rt. Hon. David


Billiard, Denys
Hocking, Philip N.
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool,S.)


Bullus, Wing Commander Eric
Holland, Philip
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Butler, Rt.Hn.R.A. (Saffron Walden)
Hollingworth, John
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)
Hopkins, Alan
Russell, Ronald


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd &amp; Chiswick)


Carr, Robert (Mitcham)
Hughes-Young, Michael
Smyth, Rt. Hon. Brig. Sir John


Cary, Sir Robert
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Channon, H. P. G.
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Stodart, J. A.


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
James, David
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm


Clarke, Brig. Terence(Portsmth, W.)
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Studholme, Sir Henry


Cleaver, Leonard
Johnson, Erlc (Blackley)
Summers, Sir Spencer


Cooke, Robert
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)


Cordle, John
Jones, Arthur (Northants, S)



Corfield, F. V.
Kaberry, Sir Donald
Teeling, Sir William


Costain, A. P.
Kerans, Cdr. J. S.
Temple, John M.


Coulson, Michael
Kimball, Marcus
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Craddock, Sir Beresford
Leburn, Gilmour
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Cunningham, Knox
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon


Curran, Charles
Lilley, F. J. P.
Turner, Colin



Lindsay, Sir Martin
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Currie, G. B. H.
Litchfield, Capt. John
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Dalkeith, Earl of
Loveys, Walter H.
Vane, W. M. F.


Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn
Vickers, Miss Joan


Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Walder, David


Drayson, G. B.
McArthur, lan
Walker, Peter


Duncan, Sir James




Eden, John
McLaren, Martin
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Elliott, R.W.(Nwcastte-upon-Tyne,N.)
Maclean, SirFitzroy(Bute&amp;N.Ayrs)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Emery, Peter
Macleod, Rt. Hn. lain (Enfield, W.)
Woodhouse, C. M.


Errington, Sir Eric
McMaster, Stanley R.
Woollam, John


Farr, John
Maddan, Martin



Fell, Anthony
Maginnis, John E.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Finlay, Graeme
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)
Mr. Chichester-Clark and


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)
Mr. Tan Fraser.


Gammans, Lady
Mawby, Ray





NOES


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Kelly, Richard
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Wade, Donald


Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)
Lubbock, Eric
Warbey, William


Brockway, A. Fenner
Parkin, B. T.



Holt, Arthur
Pavitt, Laurence
TELLERS FOR THE NOES


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)
Mr. Sydney Silverman and




Mr. Michael Foot.

Miss Margaret Herbison: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 9 and 10.
If this Amendment were accepted, we should be ending the Tenancy of Shops (Scotland) Act. The Under-Secretary of State will have realised, even before I moved the Amendment, that we on this side of the Committee have no intention of ending that Act and do not want it to end, but we felt it might be a good thing to find how the Act was working and how many cases, if any, had been taken to the sheriff in the last year. The Labour Government passed this Act in 1949. It was put on the Statute Book because for some years after the war a great deal of hardship had been experienced by small shopkeepers, particularly in cities in Scotland and especially in the City of Glasgow. After a great deal of evidence had been gathered, it was decided that we must have legislation to protect these small shopkeepers in the tenancy of the premises in which they carried on business, and as a result this Act was put on the Statute Book.
The first question which I should like to ask the Secretary of State is this: how many, if any, cases have been taken to the sheriff? How many applications have been made to the sheriff during the last year? Even if his answer is "None", this does not mean that the Act is no longer serving a useful purpose. It is like so much legislation—the very fact that it exists gives protection, without people having to resort to its provisions.
I listened to most of the debate on the aliens legislation. When the Home Secretary spoke he seemed to suggest that it was time that the provisions of that Act—perhaps not all of them but some of them—became permanent, and that it was no longer the kind of legislation which ought to come up for renewal year after year.
From a talk which I have had with the hon Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry), it seems that he is of an opinion which I have held for some time, that rather than bring this Scottish Act up year after year on the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Bill it ought to become part of our permanent legislation, if legislation in this country is ever permanent.

Mr. Forbes Hendry: I must declare that I have had an interest in the Act which it is proposed to continue, as a solicitor sometimes for the landlord and sometimes for the tenant, and that I am likely to have an interest in the future if it is continued.
When the Bill was being passed in 1949 it was the subject of heated political controversy, but the view was expressed on both sides of the House that it was undesirable that the State should interfere in a branch of the law in which it had not previously interfered. It was generally thought, however, that it was necessary for the State to interfere for the limited period of one year. The view was expressed on Third Reading that what was then described as a ramp might be at an end by 1950.
That took place, but since then this little Act has turned out to be extremely useful. Very few Scottish lawyers have realised that it is a temporary Act, renewed from year to year. In my own practice as a solicitor I made use of the Act this year. It is a very good Act, even though it was passed by a Socialist Government, because it provides very useful machinery and it provides safeguards. There is little likelihood of any abuse of the Act by either tenant or landlord, because safeguards are built into it, and it is largely left to the discretion of the sheriff substitute, who in Scotland is a paid professional judge who can weigh up the pros and cons of each application.
The procedure for an application to the court is very simple. It can be carried out speedily, and in every case which has come to my professional knowledge the Act has succeeded even in easing the difficult position where a landlord and tenant cannot agree; for machinery provided by the Act enables the sheriff, or an arbiter appointed by him, easily to dispose of the difficulties between them. It is an excellent piece of legislation which is still serving a useful purpose, though possibly a different purpose from that for which it was designed. I think that my hon. Friend should seriously consider introducing a Bill to make this legislation permanent and to avoid the necessity for it arising from year to year.

Mr. James McInnes: I mainly want to reinforce some of the arguments put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) and by the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry). This legislation, or the need for it, originated principally in the City of Glasgow, and the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West is justified in classifying what happened then as a real ramp. It is the biggest ramp which I have ever seen operating in any city.
We were most grateful for the introduction of the Act in 1949, and if we were to repeal the Act tomorrow the ramp would start all over again. To that extent I must support my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West in their request that the Joint Under-Secretary of State should give very serious consideration to introducing a Bill to make this a permanent piece of legislation. It would be welcome throughout Scotland. I think that such a step is justified, and I hope that the hon. Member will concede our request.

Mr. Hector Hughes: I should like to support the observations made by my hon. Friends the Members for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) and Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes). This is a very useful Act and should be made permanent, but as it stands it is not complete. It requires certain amendments to strengthen it in its application to its purpose.
I therefore take this opportunity not only of supporting what my hon. Friends said but of putting forward my plea to the Government to reconsider the Act with a view to applying it to the circumstances of the day and to making the system more effective.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gilmour Leburn): I am very grateful to the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) for explaining, when introducing the Amendment, that the purpose of the discussion was to show how this Act has been working.
I do not think it necessary for me to go over all the background to show how the Act was originally brought in after the war, but hon. Members will recollect that some years ago, I think

in 1958, the Secretary of State for Scotland set up the Shearer Committee to look into the whole question. While I do not want to cover all the points made by that Committee, it did not think it altogether desirable that an Act passed as a temporary measure to deal with a post-war shortage of accommodation should have the effect, in the Committee's words, of
radically altering the legal position of owner and tenant in relation to shop premises.
The Committee therefore thought that the Act should not be made permanent in its present form. It recommended that it should be retained for a period not exceeding five years. The Committee appeared to have had in mind that by the end of that period there might have been changes in the Scottish practice in respect of the letting of shops which would render unnecessary even the secondary purpose for which the Committee found the Act being used in 1958.
Hon. Members will wish to know what use has been made of this Act and whether there has been any marked change since the Shearer Committee reported in 1958. The figures which the Shearer Committee had before it were for the six years 1952–57. During that period the number of applications for renewal of tenancies under the Act was remarkably steady. It varied only between 308 and 343 in a year, and there was no suggestion that these figures were either increasing or decreasing.
7.0 p.m.
Since 1957, the picture has been somewhat different. In each successive year the number of applications has declined, and in 1961 it was as low as 118. Complete figures for 1962 are not, of course, yet available, but a further small decline seems to me to be likely. I think it fair to say, therefore, that only about one-third as many applications are being brought under the Act as were being brought when the Shearer Committee found that the Act was serving a useful purpose.
I suppose that it was far consideration whether the Act should be included in the Schedule to the present Bill. It could, I think, possibly have been argued that a drop of two-thirds in the not very large number of applications that were being made in 1958 and the preceding


years suggested that the Act had served its purpose and could safely be discontinued. On the other hand, a five-year period had been mentioned by the Shearer Committee, and, as no representations against the continuance of the Act had been received, we thought that the best course was to keep it in force during 1963 thus taking up the five-year period which had been recommended from the end of 1958.
The hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North and other hon. Members want to know what our intentions are now. Is the Act to be allowed to lapse? Is it to be continued for a further period as a temporary measure, or is it to be replaced by permanent legislation? Much as it may disappoint the Committee, I really must reserve my right hon. Friend's position on all three questions. It was implicit the Report of the Shearer Committee that the working of the Act should be reviewed before the end of the five-year period, during which the Committee thought that it might be continued in operation, and a start on this review will be undertaken very shortly. Until we know the results of that review, I would not like to commit my right hon. Friend as to what action we might take.
On the other hand, I would not like the Committee to get the impression in any way that we have made up our minds that the Act should be terminated and not replaced by any other form of legislation. We should look at this matter objectively. The interesting point is that the hon. Lady herself made what I think was a good point, that even if there had been no use made of the facilities of ibis Act the very fact of its existence probably does good.
Interesting points have been made by the bon. Members for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes), the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) and the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North, as well as by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry), and I want to assure all hon. Members that all the views that they have expressed tonight will be taken fully into account.

Mr.E. G. Willis: I am interested in the Under-Secretary's remarks. This is an occasion on which we miss the services of the Law Officers.

Assuming that they are necessary, it is unfortunate that the Government's prestige is so low that they cannot risk a by-election to return a Law Officer to the House.

Mr. Leburn: On this occasion I should have thought it would have been difficult for the Lord Advocate to speak, as he would obviously be an interested party.

Mr. William Ross: What about the Solicitor-General?

Mr. Willis: Nevertheless, even if he were an interested party, he could sit beside the Under-Secretary to give him the value of his advice, although, judging from past advice that we have received from the Law Officers, it might not be worth very much.
I am interested to learn that there is to be a review of this matter. It is rather strange that there are all sorts of reasons for reviews into whether we should continue to protect tenants of shops. We had a fight to get the protection in the first place. In fact, we had to have two committees, and it was only because we rejected the advice and the evidence of the first committee and insisted on a second committee being appointed that we got the legislation. I could never understand why this should be so.
Now we are continually having difficulty in continuing this legislation, which, after all, simply seeks to protect shop tenants. That is all it does. I cannot see what is wrong with it and I do not understand why we should require all these reviews. It might be true that the number of cases coming up under the Act have been falling since 1957. Last year there were 118, but still, 118 is quite a good number of people to have protected.

Mr. Cyril Bence: Would not my hon. Friend agree that one of the main reasons why the numbers are falling in Scotland is the ever-increasing unemployment and fear about the future, so that people are not making the applications?

Mr. Willis: I would not like to accept that as a reason. In my view, this is happening because of the exploitation of proportion, particularly in the cities where this problem has now taken a rather different form. The tenant is not


always placed in a position in which he suffers greatly. The purpose of the Act, when it was introduced after the war, was to increase the rents of shops, and that was all. Tenants were being exploited because shop leases in Scotland are short leases. By and large, shop premises in Scotland are on yearly leases. When this legislation was introduced, the intention was to cash in as quickly as possible on the demand for shops and to push up the rents of shops as quickly as possible.
The position with regard to shops in the cities is changing somewhat. We now have a bunch of property speculators buying up whole areas for the purpose of office and central development. This is a big problem. But it seems to me that the shop tenant continues to require protection, and I cannot see why we have got to have a lot of committees to decide whether he should require protection or not, unless the inquiry by the committee is to be more than simply an inquiry into whether we should continue this legislation or not. It might, in fact, be necessary for the committee to consider whether or not the legislation should be strengthened, or whether it should not be rather different in character.
Before we leave this point, I should like some assurance from the Under-Secretary that the purpose of the committee of inquiry is not simply to say, "The numbers of people applying for protection under this legislation are falling steadily. We think that it might come to an end in a year's time", or that it might not come to an end, but rather that the committee should be in a position to carry out a much wider reform and, if necessary, to recommend that the legislation might be extended.
I should like the terms of reference of the committee to be of such a character that they would enable us to say, not simply whether the legislation should or should not be continued, or that it should be continued for five or two years, but whether this is the right kind of legislation in the light of the new circumstances which are arising. There are very large redevelopment areas today. Property is being bought up right, left and centre, at least in Edinburgh, and, I understand, in Glasgow,

too, and I can visualise that this will occur in every burgh in Scotland. The menace to the shopkeeper today is rather different.
It seems to me that the committee should be empowered by its terms of reference to review the legislation in the light of the changing threats to shopkeepers and be able to make recommendations which would enable the Government, if need be, to extend the legislation.
One last question. Will the report of the committee be published?

Mr. Ross: I endorse the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) that we should not be hasty in dropping this legislation. The Under-Secretary of State said that there was the possibility of permanent legislation, but he could give no pledge about it. I am concerned about the possibility of the Government dropping the present Act and not replacing it with another. If we could have a pledge about it, that would help us considerably.
This is still a real problem. It arises in every town in Scotland, not just in the cities. It may have started in the cities, but it quickly spread and affected small shopkeepers all over the place who, after having been in business for, perhaps, twenty years, suddenly found themselves faced with the option of buying the property or quitting, the alternative to buying, of course, being, the payment of a very inflated rent. It is amazing that we have had so many cases, and, as the Under-Secretary of State said, the fact that the legislation is there is itself a barrier so that there may well be others who would have taken advantage of the position if this limited protection were not there. I hope that he will not be hasty in dropping it.
I should like to know what was the nature of the 118 cases and where they came from. My hon. Friend is quite right. We have seen a strange departure in property ownership and development in Scotland, and some gentlemen, whose names are fairly well known in the South, have moved into very unexpected places in Scotland.

Mr. Willis: They are certainly not Scottish names.

Mr. Ross: Their names are not Scottish, but we find that they do travel North and, with the Prime Minister, attend Tory lunches, mixing their political pleasures, no doubt, with a little astute business. We have every reason to be alarmed at what might happen.
In most Scottish towns today, as one goes up the main street it is difficult to find a lingering old-fashioned firm, a family business. One way or another, a man needs protection against being squeezed out. He can be squeezed out in another way. We took every step to ensure that he was not racked by rent or demands for purchase, but I fear that many of them will be squeezed out by valuation. Once the property speculators get going, their activities do not pass unnoticed by the county assessor. Inevitably, the valuations and assessments go up and it may well be that a man can be forced out of business in that way.
Is there any possibility of protection against the speculators for anyone who refuses their tempting offers of compensation, who prefers to stay in business rather than be generously compensated and who then finds himself in the position of having to resort to whatever help we can provide?
We are seeing a complete change not only in the development and letting of property but in the ownership of property. In fact, the leasehold system is developing in Scotland. I realise, Sir Robert, that you may find this a little difficult to relate to the Amendment, but it may well be that present developments in Scotland require that we must afford protection to the tenant. I have no desire to embark on a long explanation of land and property tenure in Scotland. I suggest that it would be well worth the Committee studying it. [Interruption.] The Liberal Party, for all its talk about the problems of leasehold tenure, may not realise that it was not so long ago that we got rid of the leasehold system in Scotland. We found a way and a formula, under the guidance of one who later became a Lord Advocate, but who was at that time, I think, only a member of His Majesty's Opposition, not of my party. We did afford protection to people in these circumstances. However, that is not the subject we are discussing, much as I should like to be lured by the ignorance or innocence of the hon. Member

for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), the English representative of the Liberal Party present.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Eric Lubbock: I have had a very comprehensive explanation of the system of tenure in Scotland from the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis).

Mr. Ross: One Englishman speaking to another—

The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Robert Grimston): Order. This is getting rather out of hand, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman realises.

Mr. Ross: I was only thinking that one Englishman could, perhaps, explain it a little better to another Englishman, ough not quite so fully as could a sman.
e want a pledge that the legislation w not be dropped without something to place it. At the very least, we shod have an intimation from the Governnnt beforehand of what they propose o do. This is one of the dangers of the expiring laws procedure. All the Government need to do in next year's Bill is to leave out this line. As you know, Sir Robert, if they leave it out we cannot talk about it. We can only talk about what is in the Bill. I should regard it as a breach of faith, after what the Under-Secretary has said—he has been quite forthcoming about the Government's problems here—if they did that.
Can the hon. Gentleman tell us how the new developments in property ownership in Scotland have affected the cases so far? He must be well aware that local authorities, having spent years waiting patiently to clear central areas, are discovering now, in this eleventh or twelfth year of Tory Government, that they are not able to develop the areas themselves. Many of them are being persuaded by the friends of hon. Members opposite to give up to property speculators the right to develop important areas. Has that had any effect on the cases of which the hon. Gentleman has had notification during the past twelve months?

Mr. Leburn: On the very last point raised by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross), I have no


indication that the developments to which he refers have been concerned in the cases here under review.
I take the point made by the hon. Member in regard to what might happen in a future year under the Bill. He, in turn, will realise that I am answering an Amendment which is put down to achieve that very purpose.

Mr. Willis: That is the only way of discussing it.

Mr. Leburn: I realise that it is a technical way of doing it.

Mr. Ross: This is the only way we can discuss it. It is the only opportunity we have. The hon. Gentleman knows very well that it is a technical Amendment. He will recall that, in regard to the Education (Exemption) (Scotland) Act which is being discontinued this year, a promise was given as to future action in the previous discussion of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.

Mr. Leburn: I was trying to help the hon. Gentleman. I was about to say that I welcome what I call the probing Amendment in order that we can discuss this very important matter.
I hope that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Willis) did not get the impression that there is any question of setting up an official committee. What I said, or intended to say—we can see in the morning what I did say—was that, since the five years, as recommended by the Shearer Committee, was coming to an end, we should review the workings of the Act.
The hon. Gentleman then asked why we should bring the Act to an end at all. I tried to explain that. The Shearer Committee did not think that the Act should be made permanent in its present form. Instead, it recommended that it should be retained for a period not exceeding five years. For that reason, now that we are coming to the end of the five-year period—the five years will be up next year—I tried to say that we should review this matter in the light of what had happened since the Shearer Committee reported.

Mr. Willis: The hon. Gentleman says, "We shall review it". Who are "we"? What does "review" mean?

Mr. Leburn: My right hon. Friend's Department, which is responsible for this matter, is going to go into the whole question. I think that that is a perfectly reasonable way to do it. But, if the hon. Gentleman likes to probe further when we have the results of that review, I shall be as forthcoming as possible.

Mr. Willis: What is the purpose of the review? Is it simply to decide whether the Act should come to an end or not, or has it a wider purpose—to decide what legislation should replace it? I do not accept what the Shearer Committee says, that this should go on for five years. The lawyers have always been on the side of the property owners.

Mr. Leburn: I cannot accept that from the hon. Gentleman. He knows perfectly well that that is not so when a Queen's Counsel is appointed to preside over a committee of this sort. I am sure that, on reflection, he will realise that what he has just said was quite improper.
As I said in my original remarks, the review will look at the way in which the Act has been working, the number of cases which have arisen and the reasons for those cases, and then, as I tried to explain to the hon. Lady, my right hon. Friend will have to decide whether the Act should lapse, should be continued Or replaced by permanent legislation. I tried to show that I could not at this stage commit my right hon. Friend.
I cannot give the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) all the figures for which he asked, but I can give him one figure which perhaps will help him. Of the 118 cases last year, 63 were in Glasgow, Airdrie, Lanark and Hamilton, and the others were spread over Scotland. That is the best information that I can give him.
I have said before that I believe that it is implicit in the Shearer Committee's Report that the working of the Act Should be reviewed before the end of the five years, and that will take place. After that, my right hon. Friend will have to consider what action he should take.

Miss Herbison: I wish to make a few points in the light of the two replies of the Under-Secretary of State.
The hon. Gentleman said that there will be a Departmental review of the


working of the Act and that once that review has been carried out it will be for the Secretary of State to decide which course shall be followed. As a result of that review, he may decide that such legislation is no longer necessary, or that some form of legislation is necessary but not necessarily that which is contained in the Act that we are considering.
We on this side are in a difficulty. As one of my hon. Friends said, if this review is completed between now and this time next year and in sufficient time for the Secretary of State to examine the results of the review, and if he decides to take the first course, namely, that legislation is no longer needed, there will be no reference to this matter in the Bill.
I do not ask for a further answer from the Under-Secretary of State, but I do ask him to publish the review as a White Paper. This matter was of very great concern previously. Shopkeepers in Scotland and hon. Members on both sides have the right, if by any miserable chance the Secretary of State decides to drop the legislation altogether, to ask that the review be published as a White Paper so that the strongest representations may be made for continuation of the protection.
Supposing this review is carried out and the Departmental committee, in its wisdom, being as fair as it possibly can, advises the Secretary of State that no further legislation is necessary, we on this side could not accept that. This legislation was the result of the work of a committee which was not set up in the Departmental form. The Secretary of State should not reach such an important decision as the dropping of the legislation. If he were inclined that way, another committee, but not a Departmental committee, should go into the matter.
I leave these points with the Under-Secretary of State. First, we should like a White Paper to be published, setting out the review. Secondly, if, as a result of that review, the Secretary of State felt that he should drop the legislation, he should not do so until he has had the advice of an outside independent committee.
However, in view of the explanations which we have been given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. James MacColl: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 11 and 12.
The lines that we wish to leave out refer to the Accommodation Agencies Act, 1953. The purpose of the Amendment, like the one which has just been considered, is to find out a little about how the Act has been working and the Government's future intentions for it. It has not been tabled with any idea that the time has come when the Act should be abandoned.
The Act is closely connected with the name of Lord Ilford. It was through his initiative, by using the Ten-Minute Rule procedure, that he got it passed and it is designed to protect the house hunter. It does two main things. First, it makes it illegal for any house agent to charge a registration fee to somebody who is looking for a house. Secondly, it makes it illegal for an agent to charge a premium or fee as a consideration for giving somebody particulars of a house. In other words, it stops a house agent from extracting money from a house hunter for the mere operation of looking for a house rather than the operation of getting the house and completing the sale or letting of the house. That is designed to deal with what were undoubtedly considerable abuses in 1953.
The simplest case of abuse was when somebody took advantage of the housing shortage and of people's desperate struggle to get accommodation. When a person got into a house agent's office, before anything else was done and before any question arose about whether the agent had suitable accommodation on his books, he might extract a registration fee for which there might be no recompense, nothing offered and no service performed.
That was the simplest type of abuse, but rogues soon develop ingenious variations of a simple operation and before long people found that they need not have any houses on their books and need have no connection with a house or any right to act on behalf of an


owner. All that had to be done was to say: "Before I give you a list of houses for you to look at, I will charge you a premium for doing it". Thus there was room for considerable exploitation of people on what was then, and still is, a seller's market for accommodation.
When the Act was passed in 1953, it was originally intended to last until, I believe, 1957, when it was continued in operation. It was discussed in the House in about 1958, when the then Parliamentary Secretary, who is now Postmaster-General, gave particulars about the number of prosecutions which had taken place under the Act. The numbers were very small. In one year there was one, in another year two and in the then current year there were nil. It would be useful for those of us with statistical interests if we could have this information brought up to date. We should like to know from the Parliamentary Secretary whether there have been any prosecutions under the Act.
I fully realise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) said just now, that the fact that there are no prosecutions under an Act does not mean that it is unnecessary. It may well mean that the Act is being effective and has been a warning to unscrupulous agents that the practice which I have described would get them into trouble if they were to try it. It would be interesting to know whether that is the view of the Government or whether they consider that there has been widespread evasion of the Act.
The kind of practice to which I have referred is difficult to check. Obviously, if the Parliamentary Secretary went into an agent's office and asked to be registered as looking for accommodation, he would not be charged a registration fee. If I went into the agent's office and asked, I do not think that I would be charged an agent's fee. The people would smell us a mile away. They would realise that we knew something about the game and that we were not the sort of persons with whom to run risks. To that extent, such an Act performs a useful purpose.
Recently, however, I heard of a social worker who happened to be a West Indian and who went into an agent's

office to ask for particulars of accommodation. Because she was from overseas, it was assumed, wrongly, that she did not know what it was all about and, therefore, a fee was asked for providing a list of addresses. That kind of thing Roes on, I believe, among people who do not know their way around and it requires careful watching. None of us should be complacent about what is happening.
In asking what the Government feel about the working of the Act, I should like also to ask whether they have considered the possibility of the consolidation of enactments dealing with this subject. We get quite a lot of different Acts, many of them starting as Private Members' Bills, dealing with different aspects of the landlord and tenant relationship. The Act in question is one of them. We had one only last Session dealing with questions of rent books. We had one not long ago dealing with the value of furniture sold to an incoming tenant and, no doubt, there are many more. All these are beginning to collect together and I suggest that it is about time that they were brought into some kind of consolidating Measure.
Although I am the last person to be unduly sympathetic towards property agents, it is difficult for anybody to know what the law is. It is to be found in a number of odd little places. The Parliamentary Secretary gets a certain professional ecstasy from spotting an obscure Act which nobody else has found in the Statute Book. The layman, however, who has to use legislation, not as part of his profession, but as part of his day-to-day job, does not have that same kind of intellectual pleasure and wants to be able quickly to turn to the correct legal position. It would make for enforcement of the law and also for observation of the law by people who want to observe it if such legislation could be consolidated. That is not a reason for not continuing the Act in operation, because it would be disastrous not to continue it.
We are reaching an interesting stage in the development of the estate agency profession. There is a lot of talk about legislation dealing with questions of status, registration and so on. The attitude of hon. Members to proposed legislation of that nature and their sympathy with the profession would be very


much influenced if they had ground for believing that there was a determination among reputable estate agents to stamp out the kind of abuse at which the Act is directed.
There cannot be any more pitiful collection of people than those who are homeless, who, perhaps, have been evicted from somewhere or have come to a large town to try to get work and who have family responsibilities and are desperately in need of accommodation. These people are sitting birds for exploitation. That is the pity of it. Very often they will not co-operate in the enforcement of the law because there is a possibility that if they can get accommodation they may be happy to pay £20, or whatever it may be, to an agent on the chance that he will get them something, so desperate is their need. That is a pitiful social situation which we may have other opportunities of discussing. I do not raise it now except to say that it is a terrible exploitation and something which, I am sure, the whole House would wish to stop. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will have something to say about his assessment of the effectiveness of stopping it.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): The hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) has explained the purposes and the provisions of the Act with which we are concerned and the Committee will not wish me to do so again. He asked particularly for what information I could give him with regard to the working of the Act. He is quite right in saying that prosecutions are not very startling. In the first year there were 11—that is, 1954; in 1955 there was one; in 1956, two; in 1957, one; and since then the total score has been nil. However, I do fully agree with him that this does not mean that it does not provide a valuable sanction despite the fact that it has been invoked so seldom.
I was a little disturbed by the story he told of an obvious contravention, and no doubt he will bring that to the attention of my right hon. Friend should he hear of any more.
One of the difficulties here, as the hon. Member was saying, is to get it across to the public that this series of enactments exist. In that respect our little

debate tonight may help. At any rate, I am glad he agrees that there is no case for allowing the Act to lapse while there are still areas of shortages of housing, which, of course, are the conditions in which this sort of rather shady practices and so-called agencies flourish.
I cannot give him any very firm information with regard to the possibilities of consolidation. He mentioned a number of these small Bills, but I think all the ones he mentioned would fall under the general heading of landlord and tenant. I rather doubt whether this would. I cannot think offhand of anything in which this sort of thing could be usefully consolidated.
But he will be aware, as will the Committee, that the four chartered bodies which are concerned with estate agency have been studying the whole question of codes of conduct, enforcement, and so on, and that they announced at the beginning of this month that they would be sponsoring proposals for the statutory registration of estate agents. The proposal, as I understand it, is that there would be a registration council, registration being compulsory, which would draw up a code of conduct prohibiting, amongst probably many other things, the actual practices to which we are referring tonight.
The Committee will also know that my hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) is introducing a Bill which, I imagine, is based upon these proposals, but it is not printed yet and till it is we cannot really comment usefully on it. The only thing I would say is that if it follows the lines of the chartered bodies, when we have looked at it carefully, and if it becomes law, and if it covers precisely the same point which the present Act covers, then it may be sensible to let the Act lapse, but I am sure the Committee agrees that it would be wholly premature to do it now. But if this other Bill does become an Act I hope it will meet some of the hon. Gentleman's demand for consolidation.

Mr. Willey: I am sure the Committee will be greatly obliged to the hon. Gentleman for his reply. I hope the undertaking he has given us is a firm one and that this is being seriously considered by his Department. Whether this


comes in the form of a Bill for the registration of estate agents or in some other form, I hope that action will be taken.
I think this is a good illustration of the legislation for which the hon. Gentleman himself is sometimes responsible. It has been restricted legislation because of the nature of Private Members' Bills. It demands that there should be the good will of the House for their purposes, and so they are very narrowly defined.
7.45 p.m.
This Act has been operated now for a considerable time. I think that both my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) and the Parliamentary Secretary recognise that this is a useful sanction, but I always feel after this experience that probably much more could be done. It is possible—I do not know—that it is out of this experience that a wider proposal has been made, and that the more sensible thing would be to provide for the registration of estate agents; but, whatever may be the form it takes—and I agree that it is difficult to consolidate into landlord and tenant legislation, because this is estate agent legislation—I hope that out of this we can be assured that something constructive will come.

Mr. MacColl: To discuss in Committee on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill the Second Reading of a Private Member's Bill which has not yet been introduced is something which even your tolerance, Sir Robert. would rather boggle at, and therefore I shall not follow my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) or the Parliamentary Secretary in what they said about it, excent to enter this caveat, that I do not think one can leave this kind of thing to good opinion in the profession, particularly a profession which is not yet very well organised. It may be different when we have functioning such a body as the Law Society or Bar Council, and if people who do things which reputable estate agents would repudiate are put beyond the pale. But we cannot do anything about that now. At least it is an unequivocal statement of good practice with penal sanction behind it, and so I am glad, personally, this this useful Act is being allowed to remain on the Statute Book, and so I beg to ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. McInnes: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 17 to 27.
We have been discussing this matter for many years and it is rather difficult to say something different about it. Indeed, it appears to be a form of tedious repetition year after year. Nevertheless, we have here a soul-destroying problem, and it is more so in Scotland It is almost peculiar to Scotland. It is a problem which, at our present rate of tackling it, I cannot see being solved this century.
The Amendment I move is simply a probing Amendment. I want to put one or two questions to the Under-Secretary of State. I want to elicit from him information about the effect and impact this Act has on this question of furnished and unfurnished accommodation, particularly in the City of Glasgow, but also throughout Scotland as a whole.
The first point I want to be satisfied on is the number of rent tribunals which are in existence today. Speaking from memory, I think that when we appointed them in 1943 there were 29 covering the whole of Scotland, and I am assuming that that number still exists today, and I hope the hon. Gentleman will confirm that.
The next question which I want to put to the hon. Gentleman is: what are the prospects of consideration being given to giving the tribunals power to deal with unfurnished tenancies as well as furnished accommodation, because the problem is just—

The Deputy-Chairman: I do not think that the hon. Member can go very far into that question, because the Act we are renewing deals only with furnished accommodation. He can, in passing, say something about unfurnished tenancies, but I do not think that he can go very far into that question.

Mr. McInnes: I did not ask the hon. Gentleman to deal with it beyond a certain extent. I merely put one simple question to him: what are the prospects of allowing the existing tribunals to deal with unfurnished tenancies? I do not want to say any more on that issue, because I realise that what we are discussing is the question of furnished tenancies—although I must put this point to the hon. Gentleman, and he will correct me if I am wrong.
I think that the tribunals today have the power to deal with unfurnished accommodation where the tenancies have a rateable value of under £40. I am almost certain that that is the situation, and that although the Act relates to furnished houses the tribunals established have power to deal with unfurnished accommodation where the rateable value of such accommodation is under £40. The figure of £40 is mentioned simply because such houses are decontrolled and, therefore, they do not come within the Rent Restriction Acts. There is the additional factor that such houses provide certain services such as heating and lighting and in some cases even attendance. The hon. Gentleman can clarify the position if I am wrong.
I think that I am right in indicating that over the last few years the number of applications to the tribunals has fallen considerably. I certainly do not attribute this to the fact that the tenants who occupy such accommodation are altogether satisfied with the conditions of the tenancies. I do not accept that as being the explanation of the fall or decline in the number of people who go before the tribunals. I prefer to say that the real reason is that the existence of these tribunals is not so widely known as it should be.
I have raised this issue during the last two or three years. I have begged the Under-Secretary to engage in a widespread publicity campaign to make known to the people of Scotland the existence of these tribunals and the right of the individual to go to them. I am not conscious that any large-scale publicity campaign has ever taken place, although last year I had an assurance that something would be done extensively to advertise their existence.
Unfortunately, the racket, if I can call it such, still exists in Glasgow. I think that it exists more prominently in the area of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen), who is faced with a tremendous housing problem. Gorbals is known almost worldwide and in that area we find today Indians and Pakistanis acquiring such property and letting it out as furnished accommodation or unfurnished accommodation at exorbitant rentals which

people cannot possibly afford to pay. One reason for that is that in Glasgow, although 120,000 municipal houses have been provided, there is still a waiting list of over 80,000 people. That compels people to acquire furnished accommodation or even unfurnished accommodation if they can get it.
Therefore, I hope that the Under-Secretary will pay particular attention to the question of publicity or advertising and making known to people throughout the length and breadth of Scotland that these tribunals exist and that people can go to them and have their cases examined. I know that the tribunals genuinely examine the cases that come before them, and almost every time—I pay them this tribute—come to a very fair decision.
I wonder whether the Under-Secretary will tell us what is the extent of the publicity campaign which the Government have embarked upon. The promise was given to me last year that they would take steps to make known the tribunals, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman can tell me the extent to which they are being used. I was given figures a year or two ago, but I have no up-to-date figures and no means of getting to know them. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will provide me with that information.

Mrs. Alice Cullen: I am pleased to have the opportunity of bringing to the notice of the Under-Secretary the plight of families living in furnished apartments in the constituency which I have the honour to represent. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) has said, the position in the Gorbals is worse than in almost any other part of the city of Glasgow.
I want particularly to draw the attention of the Secretary of State for Scotland and the hon. Gentleman to the way in which people are being treated in the Gorbals. Pakistanis, Indians, and others are coming to the Gorbals and buying property, some of which is not in very good condition. They do not live in it themselves. They let it out in rooms, and in some cases a six-apartment house is let out to six families. One house may be occupied by about 40 people. The conditions laid down by the owner of the property are


appalling and the rents are extortionate. In some cases the owner puts a gas stove hi the hall of the house and all six families have to take their turn in using it to cook a meal. There are no washing facilities of any kind. If the people are not back by 10 p.m. or 10.30 p.m., the doors are locked. Gas and electricity are turned off at a certain time.
The reason why the tribunals are not very popular is that if a person goes to a tribunal and makes a complaint about the house in which he is living he is either turned out or his life there becomes a hell and a torment. Some of these people will tell you that they would rather live in a Glasgow Green. If people come to one and complain about the conditions and one asks them why they do not go to the tribunal, they say, "If I go to the tribunal I shall be thrown out on the street with my children, and if I am allowed to remain in the house my life there will not be worth living".
Those are the conditions prevailing in the Gorbals. Neither the Secretary of State nor the Joint Under-Secretary knows anything about it. I do not know anything that one can do about it except get on with the provision of housing and give these people decent accommodation in which to live.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. A. Woodburn: I pay tribute to the Act which we are discussing, and am sure that it ought to be continued. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen), in pointing out some of the conditions there, showed the impossibility of a limited Act such as this handling these cases. Indeed, even at the very beginning it was recognised that the success of the Act would be limited in such a way. The very fact that people are paying exorbitant rents means that they are suffering a form of blackmail and have no alternative but to go on to the street. Although the tribunal insists on a fair rent being paid, that does not altogether protect these people from eviction, so they are still faced with the choice, "Pay up or get out".
It would be difficult to make a successful attack on this problem under the Act. I agree that the cure is to provide

more accommodation so that the monopoly of the owners of these furnished houses is not so great and the power of extortion does not exist.
Nevertheless, the Act has been a success in many ways. The fact that it exists is a deterrent. Like another famous deterrent that we hear about, the last thing people want is to have it used against them. If the existence of the tribunal is known, it will prevent a great many people imposing extortionate rents. Therefore, I join my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) in pleading for something to be done to remind people that the Act exists and that the tribunals can intervene in such cases.
I am told that in Edinburgh more use has been made of the tribunal during the past year than for a considerable time. I may be misinformed, but I understand that there are occasional meetings. I hope that the Minister will not be discouraged by the fact that tribunals may not often be called upon. If the existence of the tribunals and the powers is known, people will be more careful about how they treat tenants than if there were no powers of redress.
Whatever we may say about the tribunals and their powers, the only real solution is not to have people forced to take accommodation in other people's houses. If we could build the necessary homes, these people would have to pay far less for them than they do to live in somebody else's room. It has always astonished me that, in Scotland at least, some people are willing to pay far more to live in somebody else's home than they would have to pay for a good, new home of their own. This is a queer contradiction in human nature.
I am sure that the Minister will continue the Act. I hope that the debate will bring to the notice of intending exploiting landlords that they must deal reasonably and fairly with tenants who are at their mercy during periods of scarce housing.

Miss Herbison: It will already be evident that the Opposition wish to keep the Act on the Statute Book. The three speeches from this side of the Committee have shown how very important it is that the provisions of the Act should remain in being. But they have also revealed something else.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) have urged that greater publicity should be given to the Act, and I support them. But my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen) has found from experience in her constituency that many of these simple, decent people are afraid of What might be the result of their going to the tribunal.
The conditions which my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals has described are appalling. I know that her constituency is the worst for housing in the City of Glasgow, so I take it that it is the worst in Scotland.
The Under-Secretary must be impressed by the intolerable conditions under which families are living in our big cities, in particular, and our other cities, and also, perhaps to a lesser extent, in the county areas. I hope that he will also realise from the debate not only the necessity for continuing, and giving greater publicity to, the provisions of the Act, but the urgency of doing something out-with the Act to ensure that those who are living in the almost indescribable conditions will be given a decent home.
I want to leave that last point with the Under-Secretary. In preparation for the debate, and knowing that Glasgow was the worst affected place, I looked at some of the figures. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central says that the Glasgow waiting list is over 80,000. So long as such a waiting list exists, the provisions of the Act are of the greatest importance, and while such a list remains we must not only deplore the conditions which have been described, but try to do something to improve them.
If I were the Secretary of State, or the Under-Secretary, I could only hang my head in shame at the housing programme that we have in Glasgow and other parts In Glasgow, there are 80,000 on the waiting list, but, although we have heard a great deal of talk about overspill and new towns, since the beginning of 1958. until this year, only 5,750 Glasgow families have been housed outwith Glasgow. According to the latest figure, on 30th September, 1962, the number of houses under construction in Glasgow—

including those being built by the local authorities, the Scottish Special Housing Association and private owners—is 4,303.
These figures are terrifying when we compare them with what is happening in Glasgow, and when we realise that there is a waiting list in the city of 80,000. I know that I cannot develop this, and I have no intention of saying any more on the matter. But I felt that we could not leave this debate without urging the Secretary of State to consider this as a problem of the greatest importance—one of providing good homes for our Scottish children to be reared in, where they can be happy and become good citizens—and thus wipe away this terrible blight on Scotland.
Unless the Secretary of State is willing to do much more than he is doing at present, this stain on Scotland will be there almost for generations to come. The only real hope—indeed, I put it higher and call it a certainty—is that at the next General Election there will not only be a majority for this side of the House in Scotland, but a majority in Britain as a whole so that we can deal with the shocking problems of Glasgow and other areas in Scotland.

Mr. Leburn: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) for explaining that he wishes to elicit information and has no intention of pressing the Amendment. I agree very largely with the comments made by the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison)—at least to the extent that we are dealing there with a very human and difficult problem, which was also the point made by the hon. Lady the Member for Glasgow, Gorbals (Mrs. Cullen). But I do not think that the hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North will expect me now to attempt to follow her into a housing debate. But, as I say in dealing with this particular matter I realise that we are concerned with a very human and difficult problem.
The 1943 Act divided Scotland into some 29 districts, each with a rent tribunal consisting of a chairman and two other members appointed by the Secretary of State. Most of them include a solicitor and valuator and a woman member. The main function is to fix


reasonable rents for furnished accommodation, and most of the cases dealt with concern furnished premises. But the tribunals are also empowered to fix rents for unfurnished accommodation in which services such as heating, lighting and hot water are provided, and for unfurnished accommodation in which the tenant has the exclusive use of some accommodation and in addition the use of other living accommodation, such as a kitchen, in common with the landlord.
Since the Rent Act, 1957, applications under the 1943 Act have been restricted to apartments or parts of apartments for which the rateable value in November, 1956, was no more than £40. When a case comes before it, a tribunal can either approve the rent or reduce it. The rent is reduced in about three out of every four cases decided by the tribunal.
In the cases decided in the last five years where rents have been reduced, the average rent was 40s. 10d. a week—which brings out the point made by the right hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) that people sometimes pay more for this accommodation than they will pay for a house—and the reduced average rent fixed has been 29s. 1d., representing an average percentage reduction of about 29 per cent. But, of course, it will be appreciated that these are only average figures.
8.15 p.m.
In assessing a reasonable rent for any particular accommodation, there have to be taken into account the varying conditions in different parts of the country, the age, character and locality of the houses and the quality and quantity of the furniture and services which may be provided by the landlord. In all cases, therefore, the tribunal inspects the accommodation—and this is very important—before fixing a rent. Since 1949, the tribunals have also had the power to grant temporary security of tenure to applicants.
A notice to quit served on a tenant after he has applied to a tribunal cannot take effect before the tribunal has given its decision, or within three months after the decision, unless a shorter period is expressly fixed by the tribunal. The tribunal can grant extensions to a tenant who has been given the full three-months initial security and there is no

statutory limit to the number of extensions, each of up to three months' duration, which may be given.

Mr. McInnes: What precludes the tribunals from going beyond fixing a three-months' security?

Mr. Leburn: The tribunals can only give a statutory limit of three months at a time, but there is no limit to the number of times an applicant can apply for an extension. In the 1,542 original applications to fix rents decided by the tribunals since 1949, all but 77 of the tenants have been given security of tenure for at least the full three months. This shows that the tribunals exercise their powers to protect applicants in a reasonable way.
During the latter part of 1961, a campaign publicising tribunals was undertaken, covering the whole of Scotland. Posters and explanatory leaflets were distributed to all local authorities, citizens advice bureaux and ail rent tribunal offices. If the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central or any other right hon. or hon. Member would like to see copies of the posters and leaflets which have been sent round, I shall be happy to show them.

Mr. McInnes: Does not the hon. Member consider that the best form of publicity is to have a Press notice, for in that way one would be almost certain to reach every household? I do not think that it is very effective to have leaflets in local information offices.

Mr. Leburn: Perhaps the hon. Member will let me finish; I shall be delighted to try to expand on what I have said. The work of tribunals has also been the subject of broadcast talks and newspaper articles during the past year.
Probably as a result of that publicity—but I cannot be certain—the number of original applications to the Scottish tribunals during the year to 30th September has risen from 61 in 1961 to 97 in 1962. I do not know how we should view this figure. Percentage-wise it looks great, but comparatively I am bound to admit that it is not a very big rise, although one can claim it as a 60 per cent. increase. Nevertheless, I feel that it is better to view the figures comparatively.
It is worth noting that the increases occurred wholly in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the only areas in Scotland which


have had a regular flow of applications over the last two years. In all the other areas, the number of applications has been quite negligible. Indeed, in the past year, notwithstanding this recent publicity, only ten applications were received from the whole of Scotland out-with Edinburgh and Glasgow. Therefore, it would seem that the complaints of overcharging for furnished accommodation are largely confined to those two cities.
Application to a rent tribunal to fix a reasonable rent may be made by a landlord, a tenant, or by a local authority. Of the 6.766 cases referred to the tribunals since their inception, 5,314 have been referred by tenants, 1.073 by landlords, and the remaining 379 by local authorities. Most of the applications from local authorities were made by Glasgow Corporation, but no application has been made by the Corporation since 1951.
In the explanatory leaflets sent to all local authorities about a year ago, it was mentioned that the authorities themselves could bring cases before the tribunals, but so far no further applications have been received direct from local authorities, although we should remember that local authorities are inclined to put tenants on to the tribunals when complaints come to them.
The number of complaints at present coming before the Scottish tribunals is very much less than it was in the war and in the immediate post-war period, but notwithstanding that, I think that this machinery is serving a useful purpose. I agree with those hon. Members who have said that the more we can do to give publicity and, more important, the more we can do to see that people, whom the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North described as simple and decent folk, are not afraid to go to tribunals, the better.
If I thought that I could achieve more by publicity, hon. Members opposite would find that they were talking to a very sympathetic recipient. I will study putting advertisements in the newspapers —I am not concerned with whether it should be done by the Government or by the local authorities—but the advertisement posters which were sent out when my predecessor was in office were

very good, and I should be happy to show them to hon. Members. However, if I can do anything further to publicise the tribunals, I shall be very sympathetic towards it and I will go into the matter to see whether something further can be done through the newspapers either by my Department or by the local authorities.

Miss Herbison: The hon. Member has referred to publicity in newspapers being undertaken either by his Department or by the local authorities. He will be aware that space in newspapers is very expensive and that local authorities already have a big enough financial headache providing alternative and better housing. This should not be a matter of either his Department or the local authorities, but definitely a responsibility of his Department.

Mr. Leburn: I take the point. I thought that it might be more appropriate for local authorities to do the advertising. All I am saying is that I would like to consider it. I am not at all unsympathetic. It seems to me that there are two problems: one to persuade people that the tribunals are there to do a job and to encourage people to go to them if they feel that they are being done down, and the other, which is just as important, to make sure that people know of the existence of the tribunals, because whether they think that they are being done down or not they cannot go to the tribunals if they do not know of their existence and purpose. I take the point of the importance of publicity, and on that assurance I hope that we may continue this Measure for a further year.

Mr. McInnes: Candidly, I appreciate the Under-Secretary's exhaustive and informative reply, for which I am greatly indebted. Having said that, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.30 p.m.

Mr. MacColl: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 28 to 36.
I move this Amendment to draw attention to the working of the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946, and to ask some questions rather than with any idea that the time has come to dispense with the Act. I doubt whether that time will ever come. It has certainly not come


yet, and the Government ought to consider whether they should not recognise this legislation as inevitable and regard it as permanent.
When the Act was passed in 1946 there was considerable uncertainty about the future. It was new and adventurous legislation to try to apply some of the ideas of the old-established rent control in unfurnished houses to furnished houses, with all the difficulties involved when people have to share furniture, and so on. The Act was an experiment. On the whole, it has been successful, but sixteen years after it was passed it is time to recognise that we shall not get rid of it unless there is a fundamental change in the housing position. A fundamental change in the housing position means a fundamental change in the Government. If the Government believe that they will survive, the first thing they had better do is to make this permanent legislation, for it will last as long as right hon. Gentlemen opposite are in power.
We are in the curious position of expecting two speeches in this debate from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. When we had this debate last year we had a very long and exhaustive, and indeed exhausting, discussion of the Act, and a large number of questions were put to the present Minister of Building and Works who was then the Parliamentary Secretary. To be fair, the Minister showed no desire to shirk the issues. He had a well prepared brief for a long speech which he was carefully keeping up to date as the hours wore on, and we were all expecting a masterly exposition of Government policy to reassure us about the Act, to explain what the Government's ideas were about its future and to give us information for which the Committee had asked. All this was suddenly cut short by the Patronage Secretary moving the Closure. We have therefore been waiting a year for answers to some of our questions.
I do not know whether it would be in order for me to read from HANSARD the whole of the debate which took place on 15th November last year to refresh the hon. Gentleman's memory on the main points. That debate covered

a tremendous amount of useful and important information and contained many questions, and the Committee was treated in a most insulting and offensive way. Indeed, the people in the country, and particularly those in London, because so much of this refers to London, were treated in a very insulting way by the Patronage Secretary. I therefore think that if the Parliamentary Secretary is to do himself justice he ought either to take the opportunity of refreshing his memory of what took place during the previous debate, or I ought to take the opportunity of refreshing it for him by reading last year's debate.
Even as recently as last year we were being told that this was a dying thing. As we know, it has long been Government policy to wind up rent tribunals. Several of them have been closed over the years. Their areas of reference have been increased, and the general atmosphere has been that this is something which is passing out and therefore we do not need to do more than just keep it going.
I do not think that the Government can say that now, because the 1961 Report issued by the Ministry shows that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of cases brought before these tribunals. Last year when my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) was discussing this point he quoted the Ministry's figures of the position at that time. There had been an increase of 700 cases over the previous year. The 1961 Report shows an increase of over 1,000 cases over the previous year which, as I have said, itself showed an increase of 700 over the year before.

Mr. Loughlin: I am trying to ascertain the fullness of my hon. Friend's information. Do these figures relate to the whole of England and Wales? If so, how many tribunals are still operating in England and Wales?

Mr. MacColl: My answer to that is that they reflect the fullness of my information in so far as it is possible for me to have it. As this document is the Report for 1961, presented to Parliament in 1962, and it is now November, one hopes that the Parliamentary Secretary has a little more information than we have. We are in the rather anomalous


position of having to discuss this Act on the basis of information which is obsolete and out of date before we get it.
The answer to the other part of my hon. Friend's question is that Ministry of Housing and Local Government deals with England and Wales. My hon. Friend is more of a "Marcher" than I am and he probably knows better than I do the finer points of separation between English and Welsh legislation. I think that this covers England and Wales. It does not cover Scotland, which we have already discussed. The figures which I quoted deal with the whole of the country. I do not at the moment know the number of tribunals still in existence, but no doubt the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to give us the figure.
It is fairly clear that the work of these tribunals is rising dramatically. This is not surprising because, as we said when we discussed the Act dealing with accommodation, we are faced with an increasingly seller's market in housing.
As long as there is a shortage of houses in great cities, as long as there is no difficulty in getting all the applicants that a landlord wants, and as long as there is virtually no security of tenure for tenants of furnished property, the demand for unfurnished property will increase—and the more it increases the mare cases there will be of exploitation. That such things are happening there can be no doubt.
The function of the tribunals is to fix rents. In most cases they fix the rents fairly, efficiently and quickly. They do their best. But they are now being very much overworked, and once a tribunal becomes overworked, because of its list becoming greater, the more difficult it is for it to do its job in a thoughtful and reflective way, and the more difficult it is to make those visits to properties which are an essential part of the this kind of valuation.
Furthermore, when rents are eventually fixed, does the hon. Member have any evidence of those rents being evaded? Does he know that there is a good deal of charging of excess rents? I am sure that there are many cases in which the rent of furnished property has been fixed by a tribunal and has been noted in the rent book, but where the rent paid by the tenant is not that

which is shown in the rent book. The tenant is so much at the mercy of the landlord that he will pay an excess rent beyond what is fixed by the tribunal. He has little alternative.
Another thing that a landlord can do is to include in the rent a charge for services, such as gas and electricity. In some cases, after the landlord has collected the charge for gas and electricity he nevertheless fails to pay the gas and electricity bill. This means that the tenant ultimately finds his supplies cut off. That is precisely what the landlord wants. If he can get another tenant in and let his property unfurnished he can get a much bigger rent than he can when the tenant is protected by the tribunal.
I am told that another thing that is done in order to get out a tenant who has applied to the court is to put a lock on the letter box, so that the tenant cannot take out the letters which are put into the box by the postman. Still another thing that the landlord may do, if he lives in the property, is to lock the front door from the inside so that the tenant is locked out. If the landlord lives outside the property he may pay one of the other tenants, who may be an agent of his, to lock the door in this way.
The hon. Member is looking very Surprised, and even incredulous. These things do not happen in the world in which he lives. He was a very distinguished member of the Bar, and an expert on landlord and tenant, and he murmurs things about covenants of quiet enjoyment. What he must realise is that we are now dealing with jungle warfare of the most appalling kind, in which the tenant has very little protection under the law. He is often afraid to obtain professional advice, and when he does so he is often afraid to take advantage of it. This means that there is a need for a thorough and comprehensive review of the working of this Act.
The time has come when the Government ought to set up a great Royal Commission like that of the 1890s, with real power and authority to send for evidence, to administer oaths and really to find out what is happening. The scandals of today, which are not perhaps on a large scale, do not apply to everyone. I should be the last to suggest that what


I have said applies to all landlords, or that some tenants are not extremely aggravating. But the cases are sufficiently numerous to be very important in creating a situation which, if properly inquired into, would cause the Government to change their attitude of good-humoured tolerance towards these problems.
I must not talk about rent restriction. But I wish to make the point that things have been made worse by the creeping decontrol of unfurnished property. This offers an alternative source of exploitation to the letting of furnished houses. Tenants who come to the tribunals to obtain protection are exposed to the kind of treatment to which I have been referring. It is sometimes worse than a war of attrition. In some cases the tenant is exposed to downright violence.
I will not say that there are a number of instances because I do not wish to overstate the case, but there have been instances in which "plug-uglies" have been employed by landlords to remove tenants by brute force or by terrorising them. These things are happening today in a community in which it is the job of no one to see that the law is enforced. No one is in a position to discover the facts or to have the necessary power to protect people. Some kind of official inquiry might provide this protection.
Local authorities are responsible for enforcing the provisions of the Act. When a tenant has enough initiative to come to the local authority and complain most local authorities will take up the complaint and authorise a prosecution. But such cases are often the less serious ones. The really bad cases involve tenants who are terrified to come to the local authority because they know that they will be marked and removed from their premises by hook or by crook.
There is a further complication which prevents some tenants from appealing to the local authority. The tenant is aware that the public health authority, which is normally the enforcing authority, is also the authority concerned with overcrowding. The tenant is afraid that if he complains to a tribunal he will find himself evicted by the local authority because of overcrowding. It may be argued that people should not

live in overcrowded conditions. But these tenants have no choice in present circumstances with the shortage of housing accommodation. The dice is loaded against the tenant. I am not suggesting that the tenant is always perfect. But he has no security of tenure worth speaking of after his three months are up and he is exposed to so much victimisation and bullying. We ought not to accept a situation in which the law is being widely disregarded. Everyone is aware of the situation and it is time that the Government did something to see that the provisions of the Act are enforced.
8.45 p.m.
The Parliamentary Secretary may say that the only thing to do is to provide more houses and that there is no short way out of this problem. If he says that, Sir Samuel, I hope he will have your tolerance so as to be able to tell us how he is to provide more houses. I do not want to get into difficulties with you by debating housing on this Schedule, but it is the responsibility of the Government to see that there is adequate provision of houses. They have no alibi. After eleven years the Government cannot fall back on an alibi and say this is not their fault. They have been able to do everything they wanted to do. They have been able to carry out their policy on housing and their policy on rent protection. They have been able to institute creeping decontrol to get a free market for housing. Everything that they said was an essential part of their policy they have had ample time to carry out.
Yet we are faced with a position which is getting increasingly worse on the question of furnished houses, which is all that I am allowed to discuss on this Amendment. I have quoted figures of the increase in the number of cases going to court. I have given illustrations of the kind of thing which anyone who has contacts in London and other great cities knows about. Social workers, probation officers and others in daily contact with the life of people in towns know very vividly that this kind of thing is a matter of everyday conversation. The Government cannot afford to be complacent about it and, as last year, not even trouble to reply to the debate.
I hope that before the debate ends the Parliamentary Secretary will make quite certain that he is to get a chance of making a full statement about the position. As I said, he has two speeches to make. He has to make the speech of the Minister of Public Building and Works, which no doubt is in his pocket, and which we should all like to hear—the speech to which we were all looking forward and were bitterly disappointed because we did not have it last year. I am sure that he is also most anxious to make his own speech. By the time he has delivered those two speeches, we should be able to resume the discussion with a little more information than we have now about what is happening.

Mr. R. J. Mellish: I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl). This Act is, of course, not new. We debated it at almost the same time last year.

Mr. Loughlin: On a point of order. Just what does one have to do in these circumstances, Sir Samuel? I have been in the Chamber for a considerable time. Can you tell me why there is this discrimination in the choice of speakers?

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Samuel Storey): It is entirely a matter of whoever catches the Chair's eye. I am not prepared to discuss the selection of speakers.

Mr. Mellish: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) will be called to speak in due course.
We discussed a similar Amendment last year and the arguments which we advanced then are as relevant today. I do not propose to go over the speech I made a year ago, but it is a sad story, when a Government are in power, with absolute control, and the problems raised a year ago are still the same today. It is a sad thought that, in spite of all the pressure put on by hon. Members, not only from London constituencies but from all over the country, the problem is still with us. It is deplorable. I recognise your difficulties, Sir Samuel, because we are restricted to debating only the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946.
I want to put a problem to the Minister which is symptomatic of the problem from which we suffer today, particuslarly

in London. In my constituency furnished accommodation is not very common. It is hardly used at all. There is a very simple reason, and I leave this as a thought for a Conservative Minister. We have what I think is a very progressive local authority. It is 100 per cent. Labour-controlled. We own two-thirds of our own borough, and nearly a half of the other one-third is owned by the London Council Council, which means that there is not very much left for private enterprise to exploit.
But in other areas, not far from where I live, this problem of furnished accommodation arises. We have heard about coloured people coming to this country and creating a housing problem. But if we make laws which encourage people to be exploited in housing, we deserve all the trouble we get in this respect.
There can be no doubt—everybody knows it—that in the question of furnished housing a monstrous racket is going on. To make a charge for furniture and fittings in so-called furnished accommodation is illegal. One is not supposed to charge extra money, say, for the curtains and other furniture and fittings in the accommodation. People are advised that if anybody asks them for money for this purpose they should report it. But because of the shortage of accommodation people are willing to pay the most fantastic amounts of money to get accommodation. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will not say that he knows nothing about it. He knows, and his Department knows; or, if it does not know, he ought to sack the lot.
In the evening papers on can read advertisements stating a charge for furniture and fittings. It is illegal, but because the housing shortage is so acute and because people are in such a plight in their search for accommodation, they will pay almost anything for almost any rubbish. I do not want to be melodramatic or to overstate the case, but I know of instances in which, for curtains in the window and a couple of old battered chairs which one would not recognise as furniture, people have had to pay what is called key money of up to nearly £50. This is common.
We come back to the oldest argument we have in the House in housing debates—and I have taken part in many of


them: the tragedy is that hon. Members on the Government side do not see it in the way in which we see it. We do not suggest that we are much better as individuals because we approach the problem differently, or that all Tories are evil men, but will they try to look at the problem in this sense, that it is immoral for people to exploit others on the basis of rooms to let? We should not allow it in the hospital service, and yet housing is as much a social need as is the hospital service. People must have a roof over their heads.
I could refer to the homeless families, and, with respect, Sir Samuel, you would find it difficult to rule me out of order, because many of the homeless families are victims of the furnished rent accommodation problem. A survey of those who are homeless in London was conducted by an independent body established by the London County Council. Coincidental with the last debate on this subject we had an announcement from the Minister, "We cannot believe the figures for the homeless until this independent survey has reported". Since then it has reported, and the figures are alarming.
When considering the homeless families in London, one has to bear in mind that there is a percentage which is represented by problem families. No matter what the type of society in which we live—Communist-controlled, or Fascist-controlled, or any other form of control—there will always be problem families. That accounts for about 30 per cent. But there is also the percentage of people who are victims of the Rent Act. I know that it would be out of order for me to develop this point, but they are direct victims of the Government's policy of removing from rent control premises of over £40 rateable value and increasing the amount of decontrol.
In addition, we have the iniquitous position of the poor wretches who have occupied furnished accommodation and have gone to tribunals and objected to the rent which they were paying. As a consequence of their visit, the tribunal has been able to give them extra security of tenure of only three months. Lawyers will say, "They can go back and ask for more", but the ordinary person is not a lawyer, and he does not know all

these tricky parts of the Act. All he knows is that a very important tribunal has said, "The rent of £4 or £5 which you are paying is scandalous and monstrous for these two filthy, dingy, stinking little rooms. We therefore reduce it to 30s. a week, and we think that even that is too much. But we can give you only three months' security of tenure".
When the three months are ended they move out. Where do they go in this great capital city of ours? It is near Christmas again, and there is no room at the inn. That can be said to over 4,000 people today. The Government have been in power, with absolute control, and have been able to do what they want. This question of furnished accommodation links up with the Government's general attitude to housing, I say again that it is immoral for people to own property and to let it at exorbitant and inhuman rents and under conditions which are a menace to public health.
It is against that background that we say that this Act is not good enough. I certainly believe that the Act ought to be removed, for that is the whole purpose of discussing this Bill. But with what should it be replaced? We have to consider this problem in the light of the future. This Act does not attempt to deal with the situation. The Parliamentary Secretary knows that it is possible to drive a horse and cart through this Act day after day and that the so-called security of tenure is a myth, certainly in the great cities.
This is the irony of the situation, and here I speak as a born-and-bred Londoner. Every week 40 or 50 people come to see me to discuss housing, many of them in furnished accommodation, and they are not all my constituents. I was told by one of my hon. Friends who represents a constituency in the North that he has not had a housing case brought to his notice during the last three years. In his part of the country there is plenty of accommodation. The people have moved to cities like London. If people are compelled to come South because of Government policy, what can we do to meet the problem?
This silly little Act does not give security of tenure. It still allows the furniture and fittings racket. Let the Minister get his civil servants to supply


him with newspapers advertising accommodation. Let him go out and buy any of the popular papers which cater for the provision of accommodation. They actually use the phrase "F. & F. £25" and "F. & F. 50 guineas". It is all illegal, but under the Government's policy it is all right.
The bigger the profit one makes, the better Britisher one is. That is the basis of the argument. Housing has got into such a situation that it makes one ashamed to be British, and at times I feel thoroughly ashamed of being a Londoner. This is the wickedness of it. These people are the victims of a social policy—in this case, the furnished accommodation policy—and they are sent to hostels.
Those who come to the Lobby of this House, such as those who came here last night, protesting about homes and criticising the facilities provided by the local authorities, should remember this: where do these problems start? They should not only complain about the conditions in which they live. They should consider who put them into those conditions. Every county council has the task of trying to sort out the genuine problem of bringing up a family and who is the real victim of the legislation which we are discussing tonight.
I cannot talk about housing without a tremendous feeling of emotion. I know, Sir Samuel, that if I were to develop this argument much further, you would rule me out of order. But the great contribution of the Government to salving the problem is to bring in a Bill to smash up local authorities and to introduce an omnipotent Greater London Council which will be so remote that it will not even know where it is based.
The Tory Party always deals with these problems on the basis that somehow or other private enterprise knows best. If we accept that housing is a social need, and that it is the right of every man and his family to have a decent roof over their heads, we ought to introduce legislation to enable them to get it. It cannot be done by asking ordinary people to let property privately for rent on the basis of profit alone. It it as simple as that. Until this is dealt with, there will be nothing we can do. The real answer for the homeless and for everybody else in London and

throughout all our towns and cities is that, if they want a change of policy, they must get a change of Government. There must be a Government who will say that there are certain priorities in this Great Britain of ours, and housing is the first of them all.
It is my belief that the best landlord is the municipal housing authority, a landlord one can control and get at through the elected representatives. Whatever the difficulties, we must seek to implement that sort of policy, and I ask my party to go forward with it.
As for the Government's policy on furnished accommodation, it is all stuff and nonsense. One chair and one curtain up at the window are sufficient for a place to be called furnished. No respectable person would ever go into such places with such furniture unless he was compelled to do so because there was no room elsewhere.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Loughlin: I cannot quite understand why my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) said that we cannot discuss the proposed alteration in London Government. How will the new local authority in London apply the Act? The Act is applied by local authorities. One can ask that question straight away.
I was very glad that the direction of my hon. Friend's argument was different from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) in his appraisal of the Act and what should be done about it. In moving the Amendment, my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes said that the Government ought to consider the Act as a piece of permanent legislation, adding that the Amendment was put down largely in order to find out how the Act was working and whether it was doing the job intended for it.
Whether we are considering the situation in London where the problem is acute or we are considering it in many other cities and towns, it is plain that the Act is utterly useless. It is hardly worth the paper it is written on. What we want is not an Act designed for the immediate post-war period, as this was, but an Act to protect tenants in furnished accommodation more in keeping with present-day conditions.
In reply to the previous Amendment which dealt with similar legislation in Scotland, the Under-Secretary of State told us how the rents fixed by the rent tribunals were arrived at. He said that various local conditions and the general level of rents for other accommodation in the area were taken into account. Let us consider for a moment the second of those criteria and relate it to London where, in recent years, the protection of the rent restriction Acts has been eliminated and rents for unfurnished properties have risen tremendously. In this way we put into clear focus the rents which are being charged for furnished accommodation.
Someone goes to the rent tribunal in London and says that he is occupying two or three rooms, with a shared bath—sometimes without a shared bath—for which he is being charged £2 or £3 a week. What is the position of the rent tribunal in such a case? When the tribunal goes to that accommodation and sees the two or three sparsely furnished rooms, as long as the furniture comes within the minimum requirement specified in the Act, then all is well. Landlords in London are charging fabulous prices for similar accommodation in which there is no furniture. Consequently, the tribunal is controlled to a large extent in fixing the rent of furnished accommodation by the charges made for unfurnished accommodation. It is no good talking about landlords charging excess rents for furnished accommodation when the rent tribunals are fixing the rents of furnished accommodation on the basis of the rents charged for unfurnished accommodation.
I want the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with this, because it is the kennel of the argument about the uselessness of this Act. If the tribunal fixes rents by comparison with similar furnished or unfurnished accommodation and there is freedom in the market for unfurnished accommodation, the tenant is bound to pay what the Government refer to as the market price, and the tribunal is compelled to fix grossly distorted rents for the most miserable hovels solely because it is controlled by the provisions of this Act to fix rents in accordance with local conditions.
The tribunal may have the greatest sympathy with the tenant who pleads with it and says that he is paying £2 or £3 for accommodation that is not worth 15s. If the tribunal knows that if the accommodation were unfurnished the landlord would be free to get any amount of money in rent for it, how can the tribunal fix a fair rent? In practice, the absence of rent restriction, particularly in London, has destroyed the validity of this Act.
The Parliamentary Secretary may claim that the Government desire to protect tenants, which no doubt is true, but I had to smile at the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, a very nice hon. Member, when he was speaking earlier. When he poses as one of the guardians of tenants and yet remains a member of this Government, it seems a little near the line to me.
Once the tribunal has fixed what it considers to be a fair rent, certain restrictions in Section 5 of the Act on the landlord giving notice to quit come into play. In the present housing situation, the obligatory notice on the landlord is quite insufficient. If there is a buyers' market in furnished accommodation and a tenant has the courage, which many tenants do not have, to go to the tribunal and the tribunal fixes a rent which it regards as being fair, bearing in mind what I have said about the limitations upon the tribunal in fixing the rent, because of the Section in the Act the landlord has the possibility of securing the accommodation after three months from the notice to quit. Even if the landlord waits for his three months, in a high percentage of cases tenants know on the day they return from the tribunal that they have three months in which to get out.
That is what the Act means. It means that anyone who wishes to challenge the landlord by going to the tribunal faces the three months' notice as the longest period. It means that by going to the tribunal, tenants serve upon themselves notice to quit of three months' duration. The Parliamentary Secretary nods his head. If the hon. Gentleman who, is a near neighbour of mine, wishes to correct this, it would be as well to do so now so that we do not go on debating it.

Mr. B. T. Parkin: There is nobody to debate it. Where are the Tories?

Mr. Loughlin: My hon. Friend asks, "Where are the Tories?" They are not interested in tenants of furnished lettings or tenants of any kind. I have no complaint with the Tories. I cannot understand my hon. Friends on this side who castigate the Government, because they are there to look after the landlords, in the context of this discussion at least.
Even when they impose upon themselves the three months' notice to quit, does anybody who knows anything about the relationship between landlords and tenants in this type of property not know the hell on earth that those tenants have to endure during that period?
There is more than one way of pushing a tenant out. If the tenant who has a wife and children finds when getting close to the point of leaving the accommodation that he must secure a method of retaining it if he possibly can, the landlord and tenant then get together and agree upon the market rent. Very often, the tenant is in a worse position than before he went to the tribunal.
I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) who opened this debate how many tribunals there were.

Mr. Corfield: Forty.

Mr. Loughlin: I take it that figure relates both to towns and, possibly, to a number in the City of London.

Mr. Corfield: indicated assent.

Mr. Loughlin: So that there are thirty-three outside London and seven in London. They do well to survive. This is an indication, perhaps, that in many parts of the country there has been a realisation of the futility of the tribunals.
9.15 p.m.
I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with this question in a comparative sense. How many tribunals have existed over a period of time? How many exist today? Why, in the main, have the other tribunals ceased to exist? How many cases are heard before the respective tribunals? And, although I know this is imposing a good deal upon him, would he break down the figures between London and elsewhere?
I believe that this piece of legislation has outlived its usefulness. It is about time that we got down to the job of

framing legislation which meets the needs of the present time, but we shall not be able to do that unless the Government are themselves prepared to look at the whole question of tenancy agreements whether for furnished or unfurnished accommodation.

Mr. Richard Marsh: I hope that the Act will not be continued without some argument, because this is an extremely important issue, the major problem which faces people all over the country, though particularly acutely in London. The Act and the regulations relating to furnished accommodation comprise the pivotal point of the whole problem, because it is precisely the failure to control the exorbitant rents which are being demanded for furnished accommodation, and the existing housing situation which leaves people with no alternative but to accept the accommodation, which are responsible for much of the difficulty which exists in this country at present.
I understand from the latest figures which I have been able to get this evening that the homeless in London number 4,085 at the present time, and the only reason why there are not more is that the London County Council's welfare service's are full up. The rest are sleeping on the Embankment or anywhere else they can find, and there is a waiting list of others to get inside the welfare services.
How does this arise? It arises primarily from the fact that over a period of years there has been an enormous shortage of living accommodation at reasonable rents, and people are forced into furnished accommodation, that being the only accommodation available because the letting of furnished accommodation is a highly profitable undertaking. So we have in a free economy a situation in which a number of people are forced to live in deplorable conditions, and a number of other people find that they can profit as a result of the plight of others. This is not true of every landlord, obviously. There are many landlords who are not subject to the Act anyhow because their rents are nominal because they have sympathy with people.
Mention was made of a report which was published a short time ago, the report of an independent inquiry into the


position in London. It deals with the homeless evicted from ordinary accommodation, and they fall into two groups. I want to deal with only one, the group of those evicted from private and usually furnished accommodation. That is the main group. The other group is of those evicted from borough council or London County Council property.
We have this situation under legislation which has allowed these circumstances although it was enacted presumably because it was thought unnecessary to give the tenants of furnished accommodation some protection. It is certainly the case, as some of us on this side of the Committee know, that the Act has failed to give that protection in any way at all. It does not give protection, as I shall attempt to show in a moment, because there cannot be protection if rents for furnished accommodation are not controlled. Everyone knows the position. A tenant may go to the landlord of furnished accommodation and demand a decreased rent, and if the tenant gets into difficulties with the rent he may go to a tribunal, and the tribunal may think the tenant is fully justified and that the rent is outrageous, but we all know that the tenant is removed in due course when the period of protection runs out. This report states that in the case of one of the people evicted from furnished accommodation attempts were made to intervene with the landlord to exert influence on relatives if there was time before the family was evicted. Following these measures which are not often successful, the procedure is described for families not evicted. The report shows quite clearly that not only are these people a major and pressing problem within the housing problem but that it is not possible to provide any real protection for them within the terms of the Act.
The report on page 60 goes on to describe the accommodation of the homeless families in London—4,085 of them at the present time—families broken up, children in children's homes, fathers sleeping in doss-houses or anywhere else where they can get in. There are 4,085 people even in this Christian country and we have not the guts to solve this problem of leaving people to sleep on the Embankment.
The report describes that the majority of the families come from furnished

accommodation. Quite clearly and without any qualification it states that
The majority of the families came from furnished accommodation, and a high proportion of them had been living in one room."—
and this is the Act which we are asked to continue for a further period.
Several did not have access to a kitchen, and 50 per cent. had not the use of a bathroom.
This is in London in 1962, and they are charged exorbitant rents.

Mr. Corfield: The hon. Gentleman is quoting figures to show that these persons came from furnished accommodation and that some had no baths. He has not related the rents to the accommodation to show that in fact they were exorbitant.

Mr. Marsh: I was assuming that any Minister responsible for the housing of the people of this country would regard bathing facilities as something which one would normally have and that one did not pay an exorbitant rent to get a bathroom in 1962. In the greatest metropolis of the world, people are entitled to expect to have living accommodation with use of bathrooms. There are children living in this accommodation. I think that the hon. Gentleman would regard accommodation without a bathroom for his family as not reasonable accommodation, and so would I.

Mr. Corfield: I was brought up in a house without a bathroom.

Mr. Marsh: And so was I. But both of us got out of it as soon as we could. I am sure that when the hon. Gentleman sits back with nostalgic memories of the past he does not think about the lack of a bathroom, but surely we would agree that in modern accommodation we ought not to regard a bathroom as something that is exceptional, except hon. Members opposite who have the responsibility of the housing of these people, God help them. Here, despite this Act which we are asked to continue, 50 per cent. of these homeless families do not have the use of a bathroom, let alone a bathroom of their own. The report states:
Many describe their old homes as damp, ill-furnished, shabby and overcrowded, and a considerable number compared their present welfare accommodation favourably with their old addresses.


These are the people who are subject to this legislation and who have been living in furnished accommodation. They are the people whom this legislation could not protect from eviction. They found themselves in the converted workhouses with which the London County Council is saddled, because it has not the facilities to build new ones, and these people, when interviewed by welfare workers, said that the accommodation that they had there in Newington Lodge, Lux-borough Lodge and other places that we have seen—if the hon. Gentleman has not seen them, he should pay them a visit—was superior to the accommodation which they had previously, and which was perfectly acceptable to the House of Commons. We cannot dodge our responsibility. We passed the Act, and are responsible for the accommodation which will escape through it.
Let us look a little further. Some of the people in this appalling accommodation felt that the rent was exorbitant. We can argue whether or not it was, but they thought it was. So, as they had a perfect right to do, they took action under the procedure which Parliament had laid down for them. Some of the more rabidly revolutionary of them thought that they ought at least to be able to borrow somebody's bathroom occasionally. Some of them thought that £4, £5 or £6 a week was a bit much to pay for bug-infested rooms with paint peeling off the walls. They thought that Parliament must protect them as it had laid down the legislation. The report says:
In several cases families had been to the rent tribunals and won a reduction in rent, only to be given immediate notice".
That is the farcical situation, and we have continued it too long. This procedure gives these people no protection at all. We ought to face up not to varying points of view about whether legislation is good or bad, not to party points about whether one party built more houses one year and another more houses another year, but to what the effect of this legislation is on our people now.
The case is quoted of a Mrs. B., aged 27, who had been married four years and had three children. Her husband earned about £10 a week assembling radio parts in a factory. The couple lived first in furnished rooms, and they

were forced to leave them because the public health inspector declared that the property was over-crowded. They then moved—it was all they could obtain—to a single furnished room, which they occupied for three years—this is for a married couple with three children: it is not a matter of opinion; this is a statement from an independent report—until they were given a month's notice when the owner decided to sell the property. They paid £2 15s. a week for the room and a small kitchen, and they had the use of a bathroom. Thus, they were doing better than the hon. Gentleman in his halcyon past. The gas and electricity bills had also to be paid. The room was described as, "… not very nice, and they suspected that it was infested." This is a description of the sort of accommodation which people occupy under this legislation which we are asked to continue so that it may go on permitting conditions like these.
There was very little furniture, and so these people had bought some of their own. After receiving notice, the couple attempted to find another place. They registered with several agents, and offered £50 which they had saved as a premium. This is the problem. It is a completely vicious circle, and it cannot be dealt with in isolation from the general position.
I am very glad to notice that the Minister of Public Building and Works has just arrived to give us his moral support.

Mr. Mellish: The right hon Gentleman was not much good last year.

Mr. Marsh: The right hon. Gentleman has always been violently opposed to sin and in favour of more accommodation. That has not affected the housing figures particularly; his heart is in the right place, but nothing has come of it.
The problem is that these people, flaying got into furnished accommodation, cannot get out of it, and because of that, they must have real protection against having to live in deplorable conditions. We are told that it is up to the local authorities to rehouse these people. Indeed, for many of them council accommodation is the only possible escape. Local authorities do what they


can. But in Greenwich, for instance, we have very fashionable, expensive areas. In Blackheath, for instance, there are plenty of flats available, but it is very difficult for the people we are talking about to live there. Indeed, it would be difficult for many hon. Members to live there, although we hope that the Prime Minister may soon enable us to afford better accommodation.
The Greenwich Borough Council owns 4,225 properties. Before the war the total was 1,470. It has virtually trebled its building rate and has a good record for municipal housing. But on 23rd November there were 1,647 people on the housing list, a very large number of whom are living in furnished accommodation, while 36 per cent. of those on the list are in housing which is so poor that they are listed as having a basic need. In the last six months we have seen 294 more applications added to the housing list.
This position is duplicated throughout the country, certainly in London. The local authorities cannot meet these problems now and cannot provide the outlets, so that these people are the prisoners of furnished accommodation. The problem exists for a variety of reasons. It is said that we should charge economic rents for our properties.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Mellish: One of the problems in London is that if a local authority gives priority to a very bad case of homelessness, there is a tremendous storm from those who are on the housing list and have been perhaps for eight, nine or ten years. They feel that preference has been given to those whom they call "outside" people. This is a big heartache to solve.

Mr. Marsh: I am glad my hon. Friend raised that point. One of the heartrending experiences which we all have is that of a family evicted and having nowhere to go. We go to the London County Council or the local council and say, "You must give this family a house." They reply, "How can we when we have between 1,500 and 2,000 people on our waiting list already?"

Mr. G. W. Reynolds: We have 16,000 in Islington.

Mr. Marsh: In Greenwich the position is quite bad enough for us. The fact is that if the local authority does provide a home for an evicted family it makes a loophole in its housing system.
Why is it that, try as they may, the local authorities cannot meet the needs of the people covered by this Act? It is because the present system does not allow them to do so. For example, in Greenwich there is a group of bed-sitting rooms in Gloucester Circus, a very attractive part of the town. The cost per acre of the land to the council was £17,977. The cost per bed-sitting room which the council built was £1,960.

Mr. Harriett Slater: What will the cost be in the end?

Mr. Marsh: My hon. Friend asks what the cost will be when we finish paying it. I took the trouble to get an estimate. Taking the unit costs with loan charges, the ultimate cost of these single bed-sitting rooms will be £7,262—£7,262 for a single room. Clearly, no local authority can provide alternative accommodation at prices at that level. It is not feasible for bed-sitters costing ratepayers £7,262 a room to be provided. Does the Parliamentary Secretary seriously believe that the sort of people who take bed-sitters from local authorities are the sort of people who can pay an economic rent based on more than £7,000 a room?

The Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh), but we are discussing whether to continue the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946, and they are houses owned by private landlords.

Mr. Marsh: It is my submission that the continuance of this legislation is both unnecessary and farcical because it does not fulfil its function. One of the reasons it does not do so and one of the reasons why there is a need for different legislation is precisely that alternatives to the present position with furnished accommodation do not and cannot exist.
I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary will accept that at lower income levels there is virtually no unfurnished accommodation available. There is the odd "mum" who lets a couple of rooms, but virtually there is no unfurnished


accommodation at this financial level. Therefore, people in furnished accommodation are faced with only two alternatives. One is municipal accommodation, which I suggest cannot be provided in existing circumstances. The second is private home ownership. I will leave it there, because I do not want to trespass too far.
Furnished accommodation cannot be considered in isolation from the factors which surround housing and which produce the worst excesses of furnished accommodation. In some parts of the Commonwealth there are people who live in furnished accommodation from choice, for a whole variety of reasons. They do not need the same degree of protective legislation, because the free flow of the market controls the situation. But there is no free flow of the market in this country and unless our people get the protection of Parliament they are subject to whatever iniquities bad landlords want to visit upon them, and I do not suggest that all landlords are bad.
One of the things which makes it so serious is the fact that we must now accept that it is no good telling these people that they must wait for local authority accommodation, because in my view—and I express a personal opinion—some of them in London have no hope of ever getting local authority accommodation, and some of them are living in squalid conditions and with young families.
There is another side to this. The Act cannot give real control of rents precisely because it cannot give real security of tenure. It is impossible for these people to purchase their accommodation. If these people were able to get out of furnished accommodation in any way, for any reason, the problem would not be as serious, and this legislation would not be as essential as it is, but this is not the case. This independent report which was provided for the London County Council at its request provides ample evidence of the fact that if a tenant takes up his rights against a bad landlord—and it is the bad landlord against whom a tenant normally wishes to appeal—the landlord can eventually remove him from the accommodation. He can do this in a variety of ways.
There are many examples of how this can be done. The report says:
Far too many families had accepted notice of a week or less without dispute …
Of course, many of these people do not read contracts. Many of them do not know what is in this Act which we are proposing to continue. In fact, I venture to suggest that there are a number of hon. Members who do not know what is in this Act, and many hon. Gentlemen opposite have not even turned up to find out. The people about whom we are talking cannot be expected to know exactly what their entitlements are under an Act of Parliament, and so many of them are got out of their accommodation by sheer fraud.
The report says:
Far too many families had accepted notice of a week or less without dispute, and some who attempted to keep their landlord to his agreement about rent or repairs claimed to have been subjected to virtual terrorism.
This is an academic report produced by an independent body of university graduates. This is the situation which these people face when they try to get some control on the rents they are charged.
If, as I believe is the case, these people are charged exorbitant rents and there is nothing that they can do about it in terms of going to rent tribunals, and if rent tribunals really are a monument to good intentions and a sop to our consciences rather than something which fulfils a useful purpose, what is the alternative?
Some of these people are paying rents of between £3 10s. and £5 a week. It is possible to pay more for furnished accommodation, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) said, everyone knows that every day of the week furniture and fittings are sold with furnished accommodation. We all know of the tenant Who says that when she took over the property she paid £50 to the landlord but did not get a receipt because he said, "Surely we can be friends together, and in any case, love, it is illegal, but if you do not pay £50 you will not get the flat". We know that this is happening all the time and that these people have to pay these high rents.
It may be asked why they do not buy houses. Again, if they were able to do


so it would solve the problem and would give them a way out. It is suggested that they can do this, and that they are not prisoners of furnished accommodation, because if they were thrifty they could buy their own houses and become part of the property-owning democracy. I do not want to develop this point, if for no other reason, Sir William, than that you would not allow me to do so, but I think that economically the concept of private owner occupation is accepted rather too quickly. It is not the best way of dealing with a housing problem, nor is it the ideal way of housing the population, for a variety of reasons.
My local authority gives people loans to buy private accommodation to help them get out of furnished accommodation. That is the only thing we can do. When a person comes to my "surgery" on Friday night and says, "I have three children and I am being evicted by my landlord", I ask whether it is furnished or unfurnished. When he tells me that it is furnished I say. "There is nothing much you can do about it". He then asks "What am I going to do?" and I reply that the only thing he can really do is to buy a house, and I send him to the Greenwich Borough Council to get a loan so that he can buy one.
If we take a house at £3,000—and we will not get much in Greenwich for £3,000—and at its 100 per cent. valuation, which would amount to about £2,600, and grant a mortgage advance of 100 per cent., it amounts to £2,600 over twenty-five years, at 6⅜ per cent., making the annual repayment £209, or about £4 a week. That is not so bad, because many people pay that much in rent and would only be transferring one high weekly payment for another. For a nation in which the average wage at present is about £16 a week a man with a couple of children would not find £4 too easy to find each week.
But this is not the crux of the problem. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that the difference between the purchase price and the advance is about £400. The legal fees and expenses will be £120, so that the total outlay in cash which the man will have to put down is £520. Can a young couple with two children, earning an average wage, and paying £4 a week in furnished accommodation,

save £520, without allowing for curtains, floor coverings or any of the other necessary factors? The moneylenders do not do too badly. Working on the same basis over a period of twenty-five years the couple will eventually own their £3,000 house, if they are lucky enough to get the money for the initial payment first, except that they will have paid for that house a total of £5,745.
I would have liked to talk widely on the subject of housing because it is an important subject, and it is a great pity that we do not have an opportunity of dealing with it more widely on these occasions. But we have to face the situation which now exists. This Act does not fulfil its function. Leaving aside all the arguments that go backwards and forwards between the two sides of the Committee, for whatever reason it may be—and I believe that it is because of the total incompetence of hon. Members opposite, although I would not expect unanimous agreement from them on that—it is not possible for any Government to solve the present housing problem within a period of two, three, four or even five years. We must accept that fact.
There are many things that might be done. The most important factor of accommodation that these people want—and that is why they sometimes live in hug-infested places, and pay these exorbitantly high rents, and are prepared to live in one room—is a front door of their own. I cannot help wondering whether we have not reached the stage where we cannot continue the standards of housing accommodation which we have set down in recent years. This is a purely personal point of view. To many of these people a prefab would be a palace, but we are pulling them down all over London. Ideally it would be nice to have three bedrooms, a kitchenette, a bathroom, fifty feet of garden and a cat to put out at night, but as an alternative anything with four walls, some privacy and a reasonable rent, which gives some prospect for the future, is an advance on the present situation. I cannot develop that argument now.
Because the situation has become so serious—and I think that the fault lies with hon. Members opposite—this legislation has become that much more important. Furnished accommodation now


is not something that affects merely a small group of people. I do not know how many people are now living in furnished accommodation—I doubt whether figures are available—but it has become part of the weary and horrible road that ordinary, decent people have to travel for two or three years before they can get decent accommodation. No matter what else we try to do, the House has a responsibility to give those people some protection while they are in that property.
The protection they need is quite clear. They must have virtually absolute protection of tenancy, unless the landlord can find a very good reason for removing them. They must have a controlled rent which must be reasonable.
Above all, there must be alternatives for these people in order that they do not have to stay in furnished accommodation, or so that the pressure on furnished accommodation is lessened to some extent. In Greenwich we bought a patch of land in Shooters Hill Road. It is a well-known area, Dick Turpin used to ride there, but now it is occupied by private landowners. We had to pay £33,071 an acre for it. One cannot build on land at that price. Unless the Government are prepared to do something about land prices in London and in the country—by public ownership of urban land, I should have thought, or the control of it—

The Chairman: Order. The hon. Member is going further than he is entitled to in this quite restricted debate.

Mr. Marsh: I was merely trying to make the point, I will not pursue it, that the Government have to do certain things in addition to just calmly continuing this legislation for another year. They have to give these people some hope.
As we are having this chat about whether we shall continue this legislation for another twelve months, in this Metropolis there are over 4,000 people living in converted workhouses; and an unknown number sitting in furnished accommodation quite terrified because of a lack of security and miserable because of the break-up of their families

and homes. They are fully aware that this Committee by the legislation it seeks to continue can offer them neither hope nor protection.

Mrs. Slater: After the speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) and Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), the Committee ought to be convinced of the need to reconsider how far this sort of legislation protects the people it was designed to protect. Both my hon. Friends have related the problem mainly to London and everyone knows about the shocking situation in which thousands of people have to live in London. Terrible furnished accommodation is available for them. But when they become homeless they have to go to rest centres and the old workhouse type of accommodation. As the problem grows in an area like London even that kind of accommodation is less available.
But the problem does not relate only to London. A similar situation is arising in other cities. My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) spoke of tribunals trying to fix reasonable rents for furnished accommodation. The basis on which the tribunals attempt to do this is the type of rents available in the areas concerned. In London, because of the rent legislation, rents are high by reason of the valuations. Next year every city in the country will be affected by the rating and revaluation measures which will come into operation and immediately the value of rents will rise. That is inevitable and tribunals will be forced to fix rents according to average rents based on the new valuation.
The terrible problem which exists in London will be faced by people in all parts of the country. As a woman I may be able to understand more easily than some men the situation of many people living in furnished accommodation with no bathrooms. I thought it a rather heartless intervention by the Parliamentary Secretary when he said that he had been brought up as a child in a house where there was no bath. Large numbers of us were, but surely values have changed since we were children. We have been educated to desire something better. We ought to expect to give it to everyone else.
I find the Government very heartless on the question of the provision of bathrooms, not only in furnished accommodation, but in ordinary houses owned by landlords. Just imagine the position of a woman with two or three children living in furnished rooms, or perhaps only one room. This happens not only in London. In my constituency a woman with three children is living in one room and there are other families in the same house. She not only has no bathroom, but shares a lavatory with the rest of the people in the house. Because of the narrowness of the room in which she lives, the bed has to be tucked away behind a curtain and she has to do all her cooking on a little grill. The children have to sleep in the same bed with her.
What chance has she of providing decent conditions in which to rear her family? Absolutely none. The children are growing and this is a family comprising members of both sexes. Surely that woman should be able to expect better conditions. In an area where rents, compared with those in London and elsewhere, are low, she is paying £2 10s. a week for that room, and she is a working widow. What hope would she have even if she went to a tribunal? The tribunal might say that the room is worth £2 a week and fix it at that. In three months' time she would be out and before that three months were up her life would be made full of misery.
It is already miserable because she is living in rotten conditions and cannot wash and bath her children properly, or even cook a decent meal. What would it be like for her until the tribunal dealt with the case? It would be almost completely unbearable. Every Monday they would be on her track and little notes would be pushed under the door saying, "When are you going to get out?" The time would come when, if she did not go of her own accord, the bailiffs would arrive and put her out. What is she to do then, unless the local authority can provide her with a house?
We have hundreds and thousands of people on the waiting list. What would happen on the Saturday when she was given a house? Many people who had been on the list for a long time would come to me and say, "Mrs. So-and-so

has got a house and she has not been on the list as long as I have." In such a case those people are disgruntled and the local authority is put in an invidious position. What is the alternative if she does not get a house? It is the workhouse. We do not call it a workhouse now, because our sense of values has changed a little since the days of Dickens. We call it a welfare home, but it is the same place and has the same taint as it had in the days of Dickens.
Her children might be taken from her and put into care. What does it cost to get them put into care? The local authority is caught on every side, because it costs so much to build alternative accommodation. Children and others have to be cared for and a terrific price has to be paid to show them some kindliness and give them cleanliness and decent accommodation in which children can be reared. Many of the people who live in furnished accommodation dare not go to the tribunal.

It being Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee report Progress.

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.)

Orders of the Day — EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL

Again considered in Committee.

Mrs. Slater: I was saying that the families in these houses are scared to go to the tribunal because, like some of them mentioned in the report, they think that they will be given only a week's notice. They do not know the terms under which they can be protected for longer.
What can the local authorities do about this kind of accommodation? Apart from providing alternative accommodation, how can they inspect these houses. There is supposed to be some sort of control over multi-occupied premises, but my own local authority,


at the last health committee meeting, said that they could not start to inspect these multi-occupied premises, some of which are furnished accommodation, because they have not enough public health inspectors.

Mr. Mellish: Even if the authority had enough public health inspectors and if they condemned these properties as unfit for human habitation, the local authority has no accommodation into which to put them.

Mrs. Slater: My hon. Friend is quite right. Because of the Government's policy, local authorities have not enough public health inspectors—because they do not pay them enough in the first place and, therefore, cannot recruit them. But, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey said, what happens if the inspector condemns these premises? To provide accommodation, the local authority must first find the land. Even in Stoke-on-Trent, land which was a reasonable price a few years ago, is now ten or fifteen or twenty times as much. Nor can we do as London does—put up 17-storey flats. We cannot do this because of mining subsidence. If we did we should have to put more concrete underneath the block of flats than would take to build houses.
Thus, before we start we have to deal with the price of land and the problem of the building. Local authorities are faced with a terrible situation in which they condemn people to live in furnished accommodation of this kind. It is a terrible situation for those of us who like decent homes and want to see every child reared in a decent home.

Mr. Fletcher: On a point of order. Is it possible for the debate to continue without the presence on the Government Front Bench of a Government spokesman? No Minister is there at all?

The Chairman: As far as I am concerned it is possible to do so. It is not a point of order with which I can deal.

Mrs. Slater: In London, it is an overwhelming, heartbreaking situation for those who live in these conditions and those who care for persons as human beings. We are all very much concerned about it. But the problem is growing in every locality. Not only do they have

no bath in many of these houses, not only do they have to share a toilet in some of them, but the furniture for which they pay is appalling. It may be a broken-down chair or a miserable piece of linoleum on the floor, with gaping holes in it. It is still ranked as furnished accommodation, as long as it has a little furniture of the kind which even "Steptoe and Son" would not carry away.
Then what happens? It is true that there are some good landlords, but this has now become such a profitable racket that the situation grows worse and worse, and many of these people not only have to pay terrible rents for this miserable accommodation but lots of rules and regulations are applied, prohibiting them from doing various things. They are allowed no visitors—

Mr. Bence: No pets.

Mrs. Slater: I do not complain so much of that because some local authorities have regulations like that.

Mr. Bence: No children are allowed in some places.

Mrs. Slater: That is true. There are all kinds of silly little regulations. If they do not abide by those regulations, their lives are made miserable. This is not a laughing matter. It is a serious matter, which we are raising because we are deeply concerned about the people who are forced to live in these conditions. We are deeply concerned because we continue to pass this legislation without the Government deciding how far it really protects people.

Mr. Mellish: My hon. Friend comes from Stoke and I come from London, and I should like to ask her a question. I should like to know whether this sort of thing happens in her area: a person takes furnished accommodation and signs a lease containing conditions prohibiting children, and so on. If the terms of the agreement are broken, the landlord immediately takes action in a court of law and the tenant has no protection but is automatically evicted by the court.

Mrs. Slater: Yes, that happens, too, although we do not get so many evictions as there are in London. It is very difficult to tell these people that they have no protection. We attend our


"surgeries" to try to help them, but we have no way of helping them in these situations. I suggest that the only solution to the problem lies in the complete overhaul of the provision of homes. It cannot be done in any other way.
We are told time after time that there is a new housing programme in preparation, a new drive. At one time we heard about "The next step forward". Then it was "Houses for the people". Then we had "Protection under the Rent Act" which worsened the situation. Now we have this kind of legislation which we are discussing tonight. What we need is a completely different approach to the whole problem. Unless we do something very quickly, people will be living in these conditions in 1980 and 1990.

Mr. Mellish: This "crowd" will not stay in power that long.

Mrs. Slater: We hope not. But if the Government's policy continues, these people will be condemned for ever.
I remember a group of us in Stoke-on-Trent writing a pamphlet about housing in pre-war days. We reckoned that it would take 200 years, at the rate the Tory-controlled council was going then, to house people properly. We have not improved much since then. In some ways, things are worse. Values have risen, and people are still compelled to live in atrocious conditions.
The solution is not complacency—that is what it has been each year as we have re-endorsed this Act—but a spurring to action. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey when he says that the only real answer is to turn that "crowd" out and ensure that we have a Government who really believe in decent homes for the people.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: I am glad to have the opportunity to add my protest to those of my hon. Friends on this subject. One redeeming feature of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill is that we have an opportunity, year by year, to expose the shortcomings and the abuses of this Government in dealing with housing.

Mr. Mellish: Where are the London Tories?

Mr. Fletcher: I can understand the depth of feeling which has been expressed

by my hon. Friends. We find it difficult to speak in moderate terms of the disgust we feel at the behaviour of the Government and the way they have treated people in London and elsewhere.
Technically, what we are discussing is whether or not the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act, 1946, should be renewed for a further year. I observe that that Act, passed in 1946 and amended no less than three times, was passed in conditions totally different from those which exist today. We are entitled, therefore, to contrast conditions today with conditions in 1946. In 1946, there was a considerable disadvantage in being the tenant of furnished accommodation. In those days, most unfurnished accommodation was protected by the rent restriction Acts, whereas today, owing to the infamy of this Government, a great deal of unfurnished accommodation has been taken out of control. There has been a considerable shift in the balance of advantage between living in unfurnished accommodation and living in furnished accommodation.
In 1946, tenants of unfurnished accommodation had, on the whole, a preferential position. Today, the position is reversed. Tenants of unfurnished accommodation are worse off because the protection which formerly existed has been removed and they can be turned out, as increasing numbers of them are, at a month's notice. Tenants of furnished accommodation, on the other hand, still have the protection, for what it is worth, of the 1946 Act.
To say all this is merely to point to one of the anomalies in the whole of this legislation. As my hon. Friends the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish), the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) and the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater) have pointed out, the distinction between furnished and unfurnished accommodation is becoming increasingly tenuous. One has only to put a few strips of linoleum and a couple of broken-down chairs in a place to distinguish an unfurnished tenancy from a furnished tenancy. The whole conception upon which the Act is based is becoming increasingly absurd and meaningless. It never did have very much sense. But in so far as there was a case for giving tribunals the


power to fix the rents of furnished houses and to give the tenants of them some security of tenure, these days the case for extending that protection to the tenants of unfurnished houses is all the greater, far greater than it was in 1946 or when the rent restriction Act was repealed. It becomes increasingly greater every year as more and more unfurnished tenancies move out of control.
10.15 p.m.
It strikes me as extremely anomalous for the Government to ask us to renew this Act without making an attempt to bring some degree of rationalisation into the whole of this legislation affecting the relationship between landlord and tenants. I do not want to quote examples—I could do so, just as my hon. Friends have done—but everybody knows, and this is the gravamen of our criticism of the Government, that the balance of advantage is weighted overwhelmingly in favour of landlords against tenants. Everybody knows that the greatest possible social hardship which exists in this country is due to the fact that there is a shortage of houses and that thousands and thousands of deserving, hard working people trying to live decent, conscientious lives and to bring up children are deprived of the minimum normal housing standards which any decent civilisation requires.

Mr. Mellish: Obviously my hon. Friend and I are in agreement on this. I should like to ask him—if I were to ask the Chair I should be out of order—why it is that, if he and I agree that this Act is not adequate and does not deal with this terrible problem of housing, not one Tory Member representing a London constituency is present tonight—and could not care less?

Mr. Fletcher: I can easily answer that. Surely my hon. Friend knows perfectly well that Tory Members of Parliament have for a very long time, certainly throughout the history of the Conservative Government, exhibited a deplorable complacency about the housing conditions of people in London and in this country.

Mr. Peter Walker (Worcester): While he is dealing with that, could the hon. Gentleman tell us why only six out of twenty-three Socialist Members representing London constituencies are here?

Mr. Fletcher: If the hon. Member will have patience and will wait until the early hours of the morning, he will see them here. They are all attending to their constituencies at the moment. They will all be back here later. If the hon. Gentleman took the trouble to read the debates which we had on the corresponding Bill last year—I have been refreshing my memory from them, partly with a view to seeing what I said last year, partly with a view to avoiding the sin of repetition and partly with a view to trying to glean other arguments from the brilliant speeches which my hon. Friends make year after year—he would find that on 15th November, 1961, running into 16th November, 1961, my hon. Friends, in their continuous zeal and industry for the people of London, kept up incessant pressure on this nefarious Government until 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning. On that occasion, not one Tory Member took the trouble to sit on those benches. Certainly none intervened.
This is a very important matter. This is one subject which divides the parties in the House of Commons as acutely as anything. There may be subjects on which we agree or partially agree, but during the time that I have been a Member of Parliament, which is now a very long time, I have always found that, whenever problems concerning the social conditions, and particularly the housing conditions, of the people of this country arise, there is widespread concern, deep human sympathy and protests against the complacency of the Government expressed on these benches. All kinds of suggestions are put forward for improving legislation and remedying the lot of those who suffer from bad housing conditions. On the other side of the House, however, with perhaps one or two rare exceptions, there is a degree of complacency and silence, and sinister silence, which, above all, if nothing else does, will condemn the Tory Party at the next election.

Mr. Eric Lubbock: On the last occasion to which the hon. Member refers, when this subject was discussed all night, the absence of hon. Members from London was deplored by his hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. A. Lewis). Can the hon. Member say where his hon. Friend is this evening?

Mr. Loughlin: Where is the rest of the Liberal Party? [Interruption.]

The Chairman: Order. Perhaps the time has nearly come when the Committee should address itself once again to the Amendment.

Mr. Fletcher: It is not a particularly helpful contribution, Sir William, for one of the Liberal 'Members to try to degenerate a serious debate into conditions of farce by making a remark of that kind. I cannot be expected to explain the presence or otherwise of every hon. Member.

Mr. Marsh: If my hon. Friend cannot explain the position of his other hon. Friends when they are not here, he might be able to ask the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) why he was not present for the Division on the occasion to which he has referred.

Mr. Fletcher: These trivialities are all very well, but this is a serious subject. I prefer to say what I have to say and to bring to the notice of the Committee some of the acute distress that is caused to thousands of people in London and elsewhere as a result of the neglect of the Government to deal with the problem, as evidenced by their perfunctory request to the House of Commons year after year merely to continue this trivial piece of legislation, unsatisfactory as it is, for another year.
May I give an example? Obviously, the thing that tenants want in conditions of a deficient supply of homes is security of tenure. The Act is designed to give them very limited security of tenure for three months, and then only for a limited number of people. One of the reasons why we object to the continuation of the Act in this limited, circumscribed form is that year after year the Government refuse to carry into legislation the Amendments which my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) and others have suggested to them. The Government cannot complain that we have not put forward all sorts of ideas. We have suggested, for example, that the period of three months during which a tribunal has power to protect a tenant by postponing the date of eviction should be extended from six to twelve months. We have suggested that the same security of tenure Should be extended from furnished lettings to

unfurnished lettings and we have made other suggestions.
In that connection, I remind the Committee of the kind of method by which evictions are carried out by landlords as a result of the powers given to them by the Government to evict tenants. Only three days ago, my attention was drawn by one of my constituents in East Islington to a paragraph in a well-known national newspaper. It has this caption—and this is typical of what is happening in this country:
Landlord paid 'thugs' to evict families Pressure tactics on tenants".
I want to read this, because I think that this is an authoritative statement. It was said by a very responsible social worker in East London, Mrs. Audrey Harvey. She said that
hired thugs entered the home of two women whose landlord wanted to evict them. They dragged them from the basement where their children were asleep and they flung them out of the house on to the pavement. It was done by these thugs who had been hired by the landlord to throw the women out. We knew it was going to happen because the landlord had done it to another family. We tried to get the police to help but they refused. I understand they have been given instructions not to intervene in any housing disputes. They merely take people who are sent to Newington Lodge"—
that is the London County Council home for the homeless. Mrs. Harvey told the conference of the Council for Children's Welfare of
terrifying things unknown to the public happening to families whose landlords wanted to evict them so they could let their homes at a higher price. To get accommodation freed they would attempt to drive families out by doing such things as cutting off the gas and locking doors leading to kitchens, bathrooms and lavatories. There was a danger in many cases of despairing parents abandoning their children into the care of the local authority after having to harden themselves to part with them in the first place.
Another speaker at this conference of the Council for Children's Welfare said that when children were put into the care of the local authority
parents began by visiting them regularly but were driven to despair at being able ever to give them the slighest reassurance that they would soon be coming home to their parents again".
This was a responsible social welfare officer addressing a conference of the Council for Children's Welfare in the East End of London, and I can testify from my own experience that this good


lady was not exaggerating, for in my "surgery" in East Islington on Friday nights I hear oases of which all I can say to this Committee is that they fill me partly with shame at this conduct of the Government, but I think even more, with a sense of despair and desperation that there is so little I can do to help them. Almost week by week I hear not only of families living in conditions which are a disgrace to a civilised country in the middle of the twentieth century—of a husband and his wife and two or three children living in one room with no sanitary accommodation and having to go down to a basement or semi-basement to get water.
That is bad enough, but that really is not quite so heartrending as hearing of similar families who are going to be evicted by a rapacious landlord in a matter of weeks and who are in despair, with heartrending stories, because not only have they nowhere to go but have no prospect of getting anywhere to go. I have to tell them, and I am ashamed at having to tell them, that owing to the congestion in London, with the best will in the world there is nothing that I or the London County Council or the local authority can do about it.
There they are, faced with having to find some accommodation at some exorbitant rent; or they are faced with going into one of these places like Newington Lodge, where the conditions are such—no blame to the L.C.C., for it does its best—that families are divided. The father cannot go there; the mother can go there with the children; and father can visit them at tea time once or twice a week; and the family is split up.
10.30 p.m.
On top of that, owing to the operation of this pernicious Act which the Government are asking us to renew because of their failure to do anything about it, we get the terrible situation of landlords paying thugs to evict families in the middle of the night when the children are asleep, flinging them out of the house on to the pavement. These are scenes of such disgrace and abomination that surely even a complacent Tory Government ought to bestir themselves and do something about it. It is not as if there is any excuse far this continued state of affairs; this has been going on now for 11 years of Tory rule.

Mr. Ross: This is a very serious matter. Do I understand my hon. Friend to say that the police would not interfere in a case like that?

Mr. Fletcher: Yes. That is one of the wickednesses of the situation. The tenants have no protection. Once a tenancy has expired, once the tenant has exhausted the very limited grace given him—three months if it is a furnished letting, and one month if it is unfurnished—he has no redress at all. The police cannot intervene. The landlords can turn women and children into the street; and they do it.

Mr. Loughlin: It may well be that all reasonable force can be used in a case of trespass—I take it that, technically, that is what it may be—but if unreasonable force is used, surely the police have a duty and responsibility to restrain those using it?

Mr. Fletcher: I wish it were so, but that is not the case. Once the period of grace has expired, once the period given by the tribunal has run out, once the landlord has his order for eviction, the tenant has no redress at all and is at the mercy of the landlord, and the landlord can employ any thugs he likes to turn him out.

Mr. Ross: It is perfectly scandalous.

Mr. Fletcher: Yes; and this scandalous state of affairs will continue as long as the law remains as it is. Our law with regard to landlord and tenant is weighted unmercifully in favour of the landlord and against the tenant. That is why so many tenants go in such fear of their landlords.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, South-West (Mr. A. Evans) has on numerous occasions pointed out—I have tried to do the same—certain remedies that tenants have. For instance, they cannot be evicted at the whim of a landlord. They cannot be evicted until the landlord has obtained a court order. But once the period of grace has expired, there is no mercy at all.
As this good lady says—I do not know her, but this was in the Guardian and I have no doubt that it is an accurate report—these things are happening every day. Also, these things are known by


other tenants to be happening. As a result, hundreds of thousands of tenants are going about in fear wondering when they will suffer the same fate, knowing that in this housing shortage there is nowhere for them to go and that they are at the mercy of the whim of the landlord. It is true that they can go to Newington Lodge or Hillside, but I have been there and do not blame them for not wanting to. But this state of affairs will continue unless and until the Government bestir themselves and ensure that there is adequate housing accommodation for the people.
When all is said and done about the Common Market, nuclear disarmament and other subjects, the failure to provide adequate housing accommodation for

our people, and the condemnation of hundreds of thousands to squalor, overcrowding or insanitary housing condition's, while also submitting so many of them to the necessity to pay exhorbitant rents, represents the crucial failure of the Government during their eleven years of office.
I will sit down now because I know that many of my hon. Friends wish to speak. I hope that they will speak with the intensity of feeling with which I wish I could express my condemnation of the Government on this subject. It is a disgrace to the country that these conditions should exist, and it is absurd of the Government merely to ask for this miserable Act to be renewed year after year without any attempt to remedy these appalling conditions.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I beg to move,
That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
My chief and first reason for asking you to consider accepting this Motion is that so far the debate has been so one-sided, and although it has been a great pleasure to me to listen to the powerful speeches of my hon. Friends, I feel that an a matter of this importance we should be able to pursue the normal practice in debates in this Committee and have speakers alternately from each side.
Secondly, I think that the debate suffers from another defect. This is the day for considering the Expiring Laws (Continuance) Bill, and it is sometimes difficult for hon. Members to know quite how long each particular item will take during the day and I feel that something must have gone wrong with the arrangements for letting Members opposite know what subject we are actually now discussing.
For example, I aim sure that if the hon. Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) or the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. G. Johnson Smith) or the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Partridge) knew we were engaged on this subject at the moment, they would be in the Committee endeavouring to take part. Since something has obviously gone wrong and they apparently do not know what we are discussing, it would be fairer to report Progress and resume our discussion on the subject on an occasion when they will be here.
I am not thinking only of London Members. It will be within the recollection of the Committee that a few days ago the hon. Member for Louth (Sir C. Osborne) was offering advice about the problem of homelessness in London, which he attributed, many of us think incorrectly, to immigrants. He claimed then that I never speak for Londoners, and I feel sure, therefore, that if he knew we were talking about London problems now he would be here to take part.
This situation is very unfair to all these hon. Members who are Government supporters, for it might be said by unkind people—and I am afraid that some

of my hon. Friends have suggested this—that they are not interested in London's housing problem. I respectfully submit to you that the Committee should now report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Mr. Bence: I support the motion, Sir William, for very important reasons. I did not expect to hear tonight such a revelation of the conditions in London and the Midlands. Coming from Scotland, when I hear of these frightful conditions, I feel that the Secretary of State for Scotland should be here to learn what happens to the 12,000 Scottish people who move every year to the hell of the heavily-populated regions in the South as described by my hon. Friends.
Tonight we have had a revelation from my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater). They have spoken of conditions which we in Scotland would never have believed to exist. We thought that our conditions were had enough, but the conditions which my hon. Friends have revealed are so bad that the Home Secretary should be here to listen to the debate, as should the Secretary of State for Scotland. Every year we lose 12,000 Scots to the Midlands and the South, and they come down here to these frightful conditions and are exploited.
Not long ago, I heard of a three-roomed flat the rent of which had increased over four years to £15 a week. Nearly all the income of the poor people occupying that fiat was absorbed by the rapacious landlord. When I think of my fellow countrymen in Scotland being forced to come South because there is is no work for them and yet being forced into these frightful conditions, I have to ask why the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland are not here to listen to what is being said.

Mr. Mellish: There is another disturbing aspect of the debate. The Government Front Bench is manned, as it has been manned throughout the debate, which began three hours ago, by just one junior Minister. When he attempted to leave, as he had every right to do, to collect notes or whatever else it was


he wanted, there were protests from my hon. Friends. When we have had debates of this kind before, when it has been known that we were to discuss fundamental problems like housing—and I should have thought that even this unimaginative Government would have known that we would discuss London's homeless—the Government Front Bench has been manned by someone with authority, not just a junior, but the senior Minister responsible.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) that this is not a matter only for the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, because the problem of furnished accommodation raises matters which are connected with the Home Secretary and other Ministers. Indeed, one could argue that the Attorney-General should be here, because it has been suggested that the law is being flagrantly broken and that everyone knows about it. One could have expected some advice on that score, some report by one of the Law Officers. However, we have not had any help of that kind.
The trouble with issues of this kind is that hon. Members opposite treat them as something of a joke. We do not think that this is a joke. As my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) said, not a Member from the Conservative Party is even interested enough to attend the debate, although everyone must have known—because it was in the Lobbies—that we were to discuss London's problem. It may be that hon. Members opposite did not know what time the debate was to come on, and I suggest that we accept the Motion to give us time to establish that. We could make arrangements through the usual channels for the debate to come on at a certain hour, and we could then discuss the problem in the knowledge that we would have a genuine debate between the two sides of the Committee instead of having a debate carried on by only one side and regarded by hon. Members opposite as entirely unnecessary.

Mr. Willey: It is obvious that the Committee is in difficulty. We want some enlightenment from the Government, because unless the Government intimate now that they intend to keep us here through the night we shall soon

have passed the time when travelling is convenient. This is the time for the Government to tell us their intentions. Otherwise, we shall unnecessarily upset the officers and servants of the House, for travelling is much more inconvenient after than before midnight. In their interests alone, we are entitled to be told what the Government's intentions are. I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary is in a position to inform us about this, but we ought to know. We know what our experience was when we debated this Bill last. We then had the Closure moved in the early hours of the morning. So when I ask the Government what their intentions are I think that they should say quite frankly whether they have arranged with their back-benchers to attend at an early hour in the morning in order to carry the Closure.
10.45 p.m.
The difficulty is that the Patronage Secretary has only just arrived. He has not been in the Chamber throughout the time that we have been discussing the Bill. This is quite outrageous. It is quite outrageous that the Leader of the House has not been present in the Committee either. This is an entirely new practice. It is contempt of the Committee and of the House. It is entirely new and the Committee knows it. If either the Patronage Secretary or the Leader of the House are not enjoying sufficiently robust health to enable them to attend to their duties in the House—the Leader of the House particularly has a direct responsibility to us—and if they feel these duties to be too onerous and that their other duties bear too heavily upon them, then they ought to think about the House and the Committee. It puts us in great difficulty.
I do not know what information the Patronage Secretary has conveyed to the Parliamentary Secretary. We are always apprehensive about any message which he conveys. I hope it is not conveyed to any other quarter. But we are pleased to see him, though the person we really want to see is the Leader of the House because he is responsible to us. Our difficulties have been these. Earlier in the debate we were discussing aliens. Let me pay credit to the Home Secretary. He was here throughout the debate, but when we are discussing Londoners we have not the Minister present.
[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It is all very well for hon. Members opposite to cheer the fact that the Home Secretary was here when we were discussing aliens, but I hope that they will sympathise with my London colleagues that when they are discussing the plight of Londoners and all those facing difficulties in finding accommodation and keeping what accommodation they have in our great cities the Minister is not present. The Minister of Public Building and Works was loudly cheered when he entered the Chamber, but he realised that he had come in by mistake and quickly retired.
We have only had the Parliamentary Secretary who, so far as we know—this is a personal judgment—has, it seems to me, been so intimidated by the weight of the case deployed against him that he has been unable to reply. There is not the slightest doubt that when the Parliamentary Secretary replies it will be inadequate and unsatisfactory. We have waited for him to reply, but he has shown no evidence of wishing to enter the debate. But the debate will continue after he has replied. There is no doubt about that. He is not the Minister, but his right hon. Friend has not thought fit to be here. The Parliamentary Secretary, therefore, will not be in a position to answer the criticism deployed against the Government and his Department.
I should have thought that the Patronage Secretary, now that he is with us, would advise the Parliamentary Secretary that the best thing to do would be to say that we should proceed a little longer but that it is not the Government's intention to conclude the discussion on the Bill tonight.
There is another important matter to be discussed after this. As far as I know, the Government are in no difficulty about their legislative programme. In a legislative sense they have budgeted for the Common Market legislation. There does not seem much prospect of that being brought before the House this Session. They have plenty of time. Why should they not say that since we have had a serious and sustained discussion on this Amendment—I think the Parliamentary Secretary will agree about that—and have also had restrained debates on previous matters, and particularly in view of the fact that, except for a short con-

tribution from one hon. Member opposite the burden of the debate has been borne entirely by hon. Members on this side of the Committee, the best thing would be to accept the Motion which is before us so that we can, perhaps, discuss the remainder of the Amendments in another half day? I am sure that this could be arranged through the usual channels without any difficulty, and I hope that the Government will be willing to accede to this request.

Mr. Ross: I hope that this part of the debate will not be replied to by the Parliamentary Secretary, because a Motion like this is really one for the Leader of the House. He acts, in that capacity, not as a Member of the Government but as one who has the interests of the whole House at heart, and the whole business of the conduct of Parliament—

Mr. Mellish: Since when has he bothered about us?

Mr. Ross: He ought to be. We have seen a lot of Members apposite come in since the word went round that there was a Motion to report Progress. Nobody who heard the speech of my hon. Friend for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher), when he explained what happened to one London family, where the landlord hired thugs to put them out in the street, could fail to be concerned at the absence of people who should be here, sitting on the Government Front Bench.
Hon. Members from Scotland have some excuse when we ask for the Lord Advocate or the Solicitor-General for Scotland to tell us about the law. The Government cannot find seats for them in Scotland. They are afraid to risk a by-election. But surely the English Law Officers, who are in Parliament, should be here to deal with points like this. I am still not satisfied that the law is being complied with, when hired thugs can be used in this capacity, in respect of what I assume to be a legal process.
Quite apart from anything else, anyone who heard this debate last year, and the frightful things that were brought out, and which were not only justified by what we learned later but were underlined by the discussion and by interviews on the B.B.C., would agree that this is something that the Government


should be taking far more seriously than they are. Certainly London Members who can manage to appear on television and talk about farming would be far better off here, talking about London housing.

Mr. Mellish: My hon. Friend missed the very fine speech that I made. One of the greatest complaints that I have tonight—and this is Why the Motion is so right—is that we had a debate on this subject a year ago, almost to the day, and since then the position has worsened. A year ago we were pointing out how serious it was. That is why we are so distressed tonight that it has been taken so flippantly by hon. Members opposite.

Mr. Ross: I did not mean any discourtesy to my hon. Friend by not being in my place when he made his speech. He will remember that I heard it last year.
The speech I wanted to hear was that of the right hon. Gentleman who came behind the Speaker's Chair a few minutes ago—the Minister of Health. He was the man who introduced the Rent Act. When he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government he declared that the Government were introducing that Act because of the unbalance in the housing situation for those in London who required houses. We should have been told what has happened. But to have just a Parliamentary Secretary, and a reshuffled one at that, sitting isolated on the Government Front Bench does not do justice to the problem that we are discussing. It is not just a reshuffle that we want, it is a new deal—

Mr. Bence: We want a new "pack" as well.

Mr. Ross: My hon. Friend should not introduce "huntin' and shootin'" terms into this debate. It would have been far better if, instead of shooting pheasants in Scotland last week, the Prime Minister had made a tour of the East End of London. Or, if he had to go to Scotland, he had spent his time interviewing some of the 93,000 unemployed there.
Surely the whole point is that we should not be discussing this matter at

this hour. We started this debate on this important subject at about a quarter to nine—

Mr. Mellish: Three hours ago.

Mr. Ross: No. It was about half-past eight. My hon. Friend should have been present to hear my speech on the Scottish aspect.

Mr. Mellish: I have heard that before.

Mr. Ross: And I will say that my hon. Friend's speech is far better than mine.
We should not be starting this debate at this time of night. I see that the hon. Member for one of the Brighton Divisions is present—[HON. MEMBERS: "Southend, West."]—yes, Southend, West (Mr. Channon). I do get my watering places mixed up.

Mr. Bence: Southend is not a watering place.

Mr. Ross: The licensing part will come later.
The hon. Member for Southend, West will remember that he had a whole Friday to discuss the plight of the stately homes of England. But this is the only chance we get for a long time to discuss the plight of the homeless in London and those who are paying fantastic rents to live in furnished accommodation. I think that the next chance will come during the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill at the end of the Session, unless we can manage some time out of our Allotted Days. When we discuss this problem we start at half-past eight at night and we do not even have proper Ministerial representation on the Government Front Bench. It is not good enough.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey said that the position was worse. Of course it is. We have a Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, and a recently reshuffled one at that, who made a speech in the North in which he said that people who were unemployed should move to the South. In the last ten years we have lost 250,000 of the population of Scotland. Every year 25.000 people have to leave Scotland. They do not all come to London, but a considerable proportion do. This adds to the problem in London and to


the power of those people who own furnished accommodation. And up go the rents which desperate people are prepared to pay to obtain that accommodation.
It is disgraceful that we should be debating this matter at this time of night. I hope that the Chief Patronage Secretary, if he is still in the Chamber—[HON. MEMBERS: "He is not."]—Perhaps he has gone to look for the Leader of the House. I hope he finds the right hon. Gentleman. The Deputy Chief Whip will appreciate our strength of feeling on this matter. I have been appalled at the evidence my hon. Friends have been producing about the hardship, the misery and heartbreak of this problem. I sincerely hope that we shall be able to report progress and to start again at a more reasonable hour on a subject of this importance.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. Corfield: Of course, I appreciate the concern of the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stewart) that, perhaps unconsciously, some of my hon. Friends may have missed this stimulating debate.

Mr. Loughlin: Not stimulating, depressing.

Mr. Corfield: It is stimulating if one has a constructive mind. One hon. Member after another has said that the problem and the only answer is to build more houses, but that is something which we cannot discuss. I therefore suggest that on the much more narrow issue, it being only am hour ago since the House agreed to an extension of time, it would be sensible to go on somewhat longer.
I have checked last year's proceedings and find that there seems to be nothing by way of a departure this year, except that I should think we are making rather better progress, judging from the voluminous HANSARD reports of last years' debate. I ask the hon. Member for Fulham to withdraw the Motion and allow us to make more progress, if indeed that be the genuine wish of the Opposition.

Mr. Marsh: The hon. Gentleman said that progress is better than it was last year, but he seems to have missed the point. Last year we complained until twenty minutes to eight in the morning

because not one Conservative hon. Member had taken part in the debate, which made a farce of the debate. This year the position is even worse, because throughout the whole debate, so far as I know, not one London Conservative hon. Member has been in the Committee. We have reached a stage at which not only do they not take part but they do not even come to listen. That is a serious situation. As the back benchers on the Government side seem to be completely dumb, we are entitled to have some representative of the Government give some indication that they regard this as a serious debate.
It is a point of some importance that when dealing with a problem of this type and when we have spent several hours attempting to debate the Government's policy, the Government have just nothing to say. We are trying to deal with the tragic problem of 4,000 people in London who are homeless, yet not one Conservative hon. Member representing a London constituency even bothers to listen. This is a departure from last year, because then we complained that they did not bother to speak—we do not mind that so much—whereas now we feel that their darkness might be pierced if they listened to what is said on this side of the Committee. We are all agreed that hon. Members opposite have made a terrible mess of the position, but it is difficult to go on saying that until 5 o'clock in the morning and none of them denying it.
In the tragic position in London, we are faced not only with the problem of high prices, but with great pressure on accommodation, yet we have had no Conservative hon. Member for a London constituency present during the debate. We are entitled to some explanation why all the London Conservative hon. Members have failed to arrive and why apparently none of them has any constructive criticism or points Ito make.

Earl of Dalkeith: It strikes me as surprising that English hon. Members take such a long time to have their say, and I am worried about their reputation in the eyes of hon. Members from other countries. I am surprised that they do not follow the example of Scottish hon. Members, who accomplished their task in the debate


with remarkable conciseness, clarity and brevity, and got on with the job. I am sorry and surprised that English hon. Members are taking so long over their part of the proceedings.

Mr. Loughlin: It surprises me that the noble Lord the Member for Edinburgh, North (The Earl of Dalkeith) had the nerve even to get up.
I think that we ought to devote a little attention to what we are doing. I would never argue that one could expect the Leader of the House to be in his place the whole of the time, but does not the debate deal with a subject for which he is to some extent responsible? As far as I remember, whenever a Motion of this type has been before the House, within a short period of its having been moved the Leader of the House has been brought from wherever he was in the building to attend the Chamber.
Since 8.30 p.m. we have tried to discuss not merely the question of London's homeless but the question of all those people who are affected by this Measure concerning furnished lettings. This is an issue in which human tragedy is involved. From this side of the Committee we have made speech after speech dealing not only with London but with all parts of the country, and we have had only one contribution—which was short —from the other side of the Committee. Therefore this has not been a debate.

The Temporary Chairman (Dr. Horace King): Order. The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) must take his seat at once.

Mr. Loughlin: It is unfair to the people affected by this Act that there should be this one-sided discussion. I do not know how the Minister will be able to reply to all the points put to him.
It is now after 11 p.m. When the Parliamentary Secretary rose to intervene I thought that we should be given some indication of the Government's intentions. Do the Government feel that it will be possible to finish this Measure tonight? Are they prepared to go all night? Or do they want two more hours before they adjourn? Surely we are entitled to an indication from the Parliamentary Secretary, who appears to be the Minister responsible for the conduct of

the debate. We do not want to stay here too long, but we want a complete discussion on this issue, and the only way in which we can get it is by adjourning and continuing the discussion at another time.

Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) is right when there is a Motion to report Progress there must be an answer from a Government spokesman who can deal with the Government's timetable. A Minister cannot answer such a Motion by such perfunctory remarks about the Measure being discussed, because the whole substance of a Motion to report Progress is that the Committee has not had adequate time to discuss the question under debate and feels that it is reasonable to report Progress and to ask leave to sit again in order that the debate may be continued at a more reasonable hour, when there is a more responsible representative on the Government Front Bench, able to answer the speeches made in protest against the Government's despicable policy.
This is something which I have never before experienced in my many years in the House. I have never before known of a Motion to report Progress when there has been no senior responsible person on the Treasury Bench to reply. Where is the Leader of the House? Where is the Minister in charge? Where is the Home Secretary, who is condemned for the way he allows the police to protect thugs? Where is any Cabinet Minister? I think I can see one slinking at the far end of the Treasury Bench, though he may not be in the Cabinet—

Mr. Mellish: He ought not to be.

Mr. Fletcher: There is nobody here with responsibility. The only possible excuse for the absence of the Patronage Secretary is that he may be telephoning the Minister of Housing or the Home Secretary.
You know perfectly well, Dr. King, that it has been traditional that when the Motion to report Progress has been moved, various speeches have taken place in the hope—

The Temporary Chairman: The hon. Gentleman must not bring the Chair into this debate.

Hon. Members: Withdraw.

Mr. Fletcher: I gladly withdraw. Every hon. Member knows perfectly well that it has been traditional when a Motion to report Progress has been moved for various Members to speak for a certain length of time. [Laughter.] We have done so tonight purely out of courtesy to the Patronage Secretary in the hope and expectation that sufficient time might elapse to enable the Leader of the House to come.
I am glad to see that we now have the Minister of Education here. I acknowledge also that on the occasion when this same Motion was debated on 15th November, 1961, the Minister of Education was one of the few Members on the benches opposite who were then in their places. I am very glad that he is here tonight. I hope that we shall hear from him because I assume that he is now the senior member of the Government on the Treasury Bench. I hope we shall have some more responsible speech on behalf of the Government than we have yet had.
In addressing my remarks to the Minister of Education—[HON. MEMBERS: "To the Chair."] I am sorry; with great respect to you, Dr. King, may I point out that we now have the Minister of Education with us and, although we are pleased to see him, we still complain at the absence of the Leader of the House, the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and other Cabinet Ministers. We are still hoping that, although the debate on the Motion to report Progress has been continuing for about thirty minutes, in accordance with the traditions of this House it will not be long before the Leader of the House comes, because this Motion touches business.
The whole question before us is whether we shall continue the debate tonight or adjourn it now and continue it at some other time. One of the relevant considerations before the Committee in coming to a conclusion on that matter is some guidance that we are entitled to have from the Leader of the House about the intentions on Government business, in regard to this Bill and the business next week. But apart from that, I should have thought it was the most elementary courtesy on the part of the Leader of the House to be present in his place on an occasion like this.
The House is being treated with contempt, that on a Motion of this kind neither the Leader of the House nor the Minister of Housing nor the Home Secretary, nor any other responsible Minister, apart from the Minister of Education who sits there with his hands in his pockets and his feet on the Table, is prepared to come here to give us the slightest guidance. I wish to emphasise what has already been said about the gravity and seriousness of the subject that the Committee has been considering. The Motion has been accepted by the Chair. Everyone present during the debate has been conscious that the deplorable plight of the homeless people of London and the rest of the country is one of the most serious social problems we face today, worthy of the gravest continuous attention of the House of Commons. That is why, after the speeches which have been made, we are entitled to say that we cannot adequately continue the debate without proper time and without proper facilities from the Government to afford adequate answers to it.
11.15 p.m.
Will the Minister of Education say that the Government intend to allow to go by default, without any adequate answer from the Treasury Bench, the serious charges which have been made by my hon. Friends, and not contradicted by anyone on his own side of the House, about the deplorable housing conditions in London and elsewhere? Do the Government intend to treat Parliament with contempt? Cabinet Ministers have not got the excuse that they are in the Provinces attending by-election meetings. They would not do much good if they were. Where are they? Their duty is to be here to attend the business of the House of Commons.
It is a reproach to the dignity of Parliament that no one is present to deal with this matter. I hope that those hon. Members who are listening will at least have the grace to support us in the Division Lobby so that they also may assert that one of the proper duties of the Government and of Parliament is to give due attention to the disgraceful housing conditions which exist in the country today.

Mr. Laurence Pavitt: I urge the Parliamentary Secretary to respond to the representations which have been made by my hon. Friends. All hon. Members must be well aware of the tremendous pressure which is put upon us by people in our constituencies who are suffering hardships at this time just before Christmas, the homeless, those suffering the distress of broken families, and all the others whose circumstances we have been considering today.
We have a new Minister of Housing and Local Government. The previous two Ministers, at a very late stage in their careers, discovered the problem of slums and slum clearance. The new Minister has moved much more quickly and has already made some pronouncements.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Pavitt: It is with great pleasure that I welcome the Minister himself. It was precisely because of the need for his presence that we were pressing the Motion. But the situation will still be inadequate if the Minister now, at twenty minutes past 11, tries to take the matter up in the middle of the debate. We should have preferred him to come fresh to it, as we would wish to come fresh to it ourselves, in order that he may be seized of the problems and in order that what we say may have some effect. The whole point of the debate is not only to examine the legislation before us but to convince the Minister of the need for urgent Government action in a number of important ways.
Now that the Minister is here, should the debate continue? It would be far better if he could come to it fresh, after having had the opportunity to read, mark, learn and digest the excellent speeches which have been made from this side of the House. Now that the Parliamentary Secretary is able to consult his Minister, I hope that both he and his right hon. Friend will see that that would be the only fair way to deal with this important matter. I ask them to accept the Motion.

Mr. Parkin: I am in a little difficulty and I may be in a unique position. I came to the Committee tonight prepared to raise, with care and in detail, the

question of the letting of furnished dwellings. I had expected that either there would have been a succession of speeches from the Government benches passionately defending the work, importance and success of the tribunals as such dealing with the sort of cases that are brought to them, or there would be none and the Parliamentary Secretary would accept the Amendment and say that there was no longer need for these tribunals.
If, however, I am to make a speech before the Question is put on the subject of furnished houses, I have to ask for a survey of something, which, I think, has never yet been done—a survey of the need for legitimate furnished dwellings in London. That intimately concerns the Minister of Education. Indeed, I am not sure that the Minister of Education would not be in a much better position to reply to me, because probably he has access to such a survey, than the Minister of Housing and Local Government, from whom, so far, we have had nothing on those lines. The Minister of Education must know what demands will be put upon small single-room flatlets, two-room flatlets, and so on, as a result of the expansion of technical education in the London area. Each year, more and more demands are put upon the limited amount of dwelling accommodation.
My difficulty is whether I would like the debate to continue tonight without the presence of both Ministers, because I am not sure that I should get an assurance that both of them would stay and reply to the debate. Therefore, I support the Motion in the hope that we get an assurance from the Government that they consider that we should defer further consideration and that all the principal Ministers will reply on the different facets of this extremely important London problem.

Mr. MacColl: I welcome the Minister to our midst. If ever justification for a Motion to report Progress was needed, we have it tonight. Had we not taken this opportunity of moving to report Progress, we would not have had the right hon. Gentleman with us. It has been a hard struggle to get him here, but we have at least landed one of our fish, if not all those we wanted. I should like, through you, Dr. King, to express to the right hon. Gentleman why we think he should be here.
The Government treat the continuation of the Act as a routine matter to be put through by the Parliamentary Secretary more or less "on the nod" as something which does not raise any great issues, except, perhaps, a few administrative details, a few statistics, and so on. It was made fairly clear to the Government a year ago that that was far from being the situation. That has been made even clearer tonight, when, throughout the debate, it has been made perfectly clear that behind this comparatively small Act, dealing with a comparatively small element of the housing problem, is the complete breakdown of the Government's housing policy, which is not a matter for the Parliamentary Secretary but is a matter for the Cabinet.
Behind the discussion of the Act, we have the whole time been up against the difficulties arising from the situation in London in particular and in Stoke-on-Trent and other large cities, where the housing shortage has created such a predominance for landlords that a fair bargain between landlord and tenant has become impossible.
That is something which arises from Cabinet policy. It is not an administrative matter for the Parliamentary Secretary to deal with. Therefore, with the greatest respect to the Parliamentary Secretary—I do not want to be offensive to him—it was obviously an insult to the Committee to leave him to answer for the Government on a matter of this grave importance. This is a matter for a major statement on one of the most desperate human problems at present afflicting the country.
Everybody—except, apparently, the Government and the London Conservative Members—knows that this is a terribly human problem which ought to be absorbing all our attention, and yet we have had one Junior Minister on the Government Front Bench, and when I rose to move this Amendment I do not think there was one Conservative Member present on the benches opposite. Therefore, it is important that the right hon. Gentleman should be here, and if we are to continue this debate no doubt an opportunity will be taken to recapitulate some of the major points which have been put in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman.
I do not think, though, that we ought to ignore the absence of two other people. First of all, there is the absence of the Law Officers of the Crown. This is a matter which arises from time to time. I feel bitterly disappointed and disillusioned by the Attorney-General, because I remember very well that last year when we had to complain that there were no Law Officers here present the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir J. Hobson) was the only legal person on the Government benches and we had to appeal to him for advice on legal matters which arose. I certainly thought that when the hon. and learned Gentleman became Attorney-General, having seen from the back benches something of the difficulties caused by not having adequate legal advice available to the Committee, he would have made a point of being here tonight to help us.
I am very sorry and disappointed that he has not been with us, because what happened last year will be in the recollection of the Committee. Because we were inadequately advised, and because the Government had inadequate support in debate from the Front Bench, it was decided at a high level that the best thing to do was to have no Government speech at all, and the Parliamentary Secretary of the day was cut out altogether by the decision of the Patronage Secretary, because it was thought that there would be less political damage done to the Government by having no reply than having a bad and ill-instructed reply. I am sure that with the Minister here there is no risk of that at all.
I have been, and I am sure my hon. Friends have been, a bit surprised that the Leader of the House is still absent and has not been in at all in these proceedings. There was a time when—and you as historian of the House will know better than most of us, Dr. King—Prime Ministers regarded it as part of their duty to be on the Front Bench throughout the proceedings of the House, but with the growth of legislative and administrative business that has proved less and less possible; but why do we have a Leader of the House if he is not to lead us? I would have thought that the place to lead us was the Treasury Bench and not somewhere in the back regions. I think that if the Leader of


the House had been here he would have sensed the feeling of the Committee, that he would have sensed the feeling of urgency about this problem, and that we would have got a better response from the Government, and that we should have got better progress in the discussions.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): I am sure the Committee will wish to make progress with the proposal put forward by the Government. It is an essential part of the ways of tackling the very serious housing problem which still faces this country. I hope that the Committee will make progress on this, as my hon. Friend has been here to listen to the arguments, arguments which will be of interest to me, and which I shall, naturally, read tomorrow, and as I have come myself to listen. I hope the Committee will recognise that what is being proposed by the Government is probably desired by all sections of the Committee and that therefore, now that I have come here, the hon. Member will see fit to withdraw the Motion before us at the moment so that we can make progress on what is thoroughly desirable in the interests of the people who need houses.

11.30 p.m.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: The Minister has asked the Committee to proceed. He has very obligingly told us that he will read tomorrow the comments that have been made. But if the Committee accepts his advice it will be too late because he will not be in a position to make any comment and the decision will have been made, which will mean that the scores of thousands of people who are living in most desperate conditions will continue to do so. The Minister knows what the position of some of these people is because he recently received a deputation from them, but he does not know the plight of the people about whom my hon. Friends have been speaking, but he ought to know before he asks the Committee to sanction the continuance of this law.
There is another reason why we should report Progress—f or the benefit of hon. Members opposite who are weary and fed up and are hanging about waiting to be given permission to go home.

Commander J. S. Kerans: So is the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Fernyhough: I can go home when I like. The Patronage Secretary cannot keep me here. I am a free agent. It is hon. Members opposite who are not free in this matter. It is no good the hon. and gallant Member for The Hartlepoods (Commander Kerans) shouting about this. He is very anxious to go home because he is not very interested in the homeless. But we are. We think this is one of the most tragic problems the nation faces. If hon. Members opposite are tired and do not want to listen, let them go home, but let them do so knowing full well that they will come back to a full-scale debate on this subject which affects so many thousands.
It is atrocious, wicked and scandalous that we should be shoving through legislation like this, the Government almost attempting to get it through on the nod, after a three or four hour debate on a subject affecting tens of thousands of people. If hon. Members opposite were living under these conditions they would not smirk and laugh as they are doing. Let them go and see these people and smirk and laugh and see what reception they would then get. They shut it out of their minds. They are not interested, except the many of them in the dividends they get out of the exploitation that is going on. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes; do not let any of the big property-owning fraternity on the benches opposite think they are not part and parcel of the racket. Of course they are, and it is because they are that they do not like to hear this story and be reminded of what is happening.

Mr. Ray Mawby: Why not tell us?

Mr. Fernyhough: We want to tell them. That is why we are here. You have not been here. You have only—

The Temporary Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman must address the Chair, and I think it would help if he did not point at individual hon. Members.

Mr. Fernyhough: Dr. King, I have never known that gesticulations in the House were out of order. If they were,


then Lloyd George, the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), Nye Bevan and all the great Parliamentarians we have had have been out of order.

Mr. Ross: On a point of order, Dr. King. Since you are censuring hon. Members for things which are out of order, would it not be as well to censure interventions from people who are not in the Chamber?

The Temporary Chairman: Certainly, if that were called to my attention, but I have not noticed it.

Mr. Fernyhough: Since the Motion was moved the Patronage Secretary has arrived and had same discussion with the Minister. I am sure the Committee would like to know whether the Patronage Secretary does not feed that it would be better for the dignity of the House of Commons that we should now report Progress, adjourn and return to this very important subject affecting tens of thousands of people with minds refreshed and determined to try to solve the problem.

Mr. Mawby: I have sat here for a long time this evening. [HON. MEMBERS: No, you haven't.] On a point of order, Dr. King. Is it in order for hon. Members to make interventions from a recumbent position, and in a very dogmatic manner, when they were not present when I was?

The Temporary Chairman: The answer is that it is not in order.

Mr. Mawby: I repeat that I have sat in this Chamber for some considerable time, particularly during this debate. It is important to recall what we were debating. We were discussing an Amendment moved by the Opposition to annul an Act passed by their Government. It is terribly important that I should at least answer the charge made by the hon. Member far Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) that hon. Members on this side of the Committee are not interested in housing conditions.
The point we were debating is an extremely narrow one, affecting rented furnished accommodation. Because we on this side are not using the opportunity to raise the very wide issues which may be involved, I do not think it is

right for hon. Members opposite to suggest that we are disregarding the interests of people in rented accommodation. I suggest that the very fact we are discussing an Amendment—

Mr. Lubbock: We are discussing the Motion to report Progress.

Mr. Mawby: The hon. Member is very kind in reminding me that we are now holding a very long debate on whether we should report Progress. I was saying that before we entered this exercise we were debating an Amendment seeking to delete from the Bill an Act of 1946. It is important that we should remember that and should take a decision now on whether to report Progress or not. If we decide not to report Progress, then we can get back to the business of discussing the extremely narrow issue raised by the Amendment.

Mr. Stewart: I listened attentively to what the Minister said, and I think that many of us on this side of the Committee still feel that the debate would be better conducted at another time. But it is apparent that the Government are not of that view, and we now know that if hon. Members opposite cannot talk they can walk if put to the necessity, so that the Government's view, if put to the test, would prevail. In view of that, and because we want to show some return to the Minister for the fact that, unlike so many of his colleagues concerned in this Bill, he is at any rate here, I feel that it would be the proper course for me to beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Question again proposed.

Mr. Corfield: Mr. Corfield rose—

Mr. Mellish: On a point of order, Dr. King. Am I right in assuming that, as we are in Committee, it will be in order for those hon. Members who have already spoken to speak again after the Parliamentary Secretary? There is some confusion as to whether we may speak more than once.

The Temporary Chairman: It is in order for hon. Members to seek to address the Committee any number of times, but they would not be able to repeat what they had said in their previous speeches.

Mr. Corfield: The debate this evening has ranged rather wider than it would be strictly in order for me to answer, and as—

Mr. Manuel: On a point of order. In his opening sentence, the Parliamentary Secretary said that he thought that the debate had gone rather wider than it should if it had been kept in order. Is not that a reflection on the Chair? Should not the Parliamentary Secretary be pulled up just as other hon. Members are pulled up when they stray off the path?

The Temporary Chairman: My recollection of what the Parliamentary Secretary said—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) puts a point of order to the Chair he should have the courtesy to listen to the reply. I had not even dealt with his point of order.

Mr. Manuel: Then stop the interruptions from the other side.

The Temporary Chairman: Order. My recollection of what the Parliamentary Secretary said was that the debate had gone wider than he had expected.

Mr. Manuel: He used the expression "out of order".

The Temporary Chairman: If he did suggest that the Chair was out of order in allowing the debate to proceed as it did, he was out of order.

Mr. Loughlin: Further to that point of order. The Parliamentary Secretary said that it had gone so wide that it would be out of order for him to deal with it.

The Temporary Chairman: If so, I trust that he will withdraw that imputation on the Chair.

Mr. Corfield: Certainly, if there was any imputation. What I meant was that if I answered all the questions and went right to the root of the matter I would be straying into the question of building houses, which, I am sure you would agree, Dr. King, would be out of order. This is the difficulty. We have been discussing a problem for which speaker after speaker has said the cure is to build more houses, and that, we all know, is not something which we can discuss in this debate.
I want to return to the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl), who kept very closely to the question of tribunals for the fixing of rents for furnished premises and the question of the limited increase in security for periods of three months. He asked for information about how much use was made of these tribunals. I will try to answer him and the similar questions put by other hon. Members, notably the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) and the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher).
In the twelve months ending 31st March, this year, there were 6,004 decisions, representing an increase of 23 per cent. over the same period for the previous year. In the twelve-month period ending 30th June, the figures were 5,860, an increase of 12·9 per cent. over the corresponding previous period, and in the twelve-month period ending 30th September, the figures were 5,614, a decrease of 1 per cent. The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West wanted me to break down the figures into decisions in and outside London. I could give many figures, but I think that the Committee would be bored. However, I will give the figure for the twelve-month period up to 30th September, this year, which ties in with those which I have already given. The number of decisions in London was 3,414 with 2,180 in the remainder of England and 20 in Wales, making the total of 5,614 which I have already given.
11.45 p.m.
It was suggested by, I think, the hon. Member for Widnes that some of these tribunals might be overworked. This, quite clearly, is certainly not true from the numbers in the provinces or outside London. Indeed the six tribunals in Wales heard a total of twenty cases throughout the year, but in London, of course, where there are seven tribunals a very quick calculation shows that something like 500 cases per tribunal were decided. I am told that the busiest tribunal is that in East London, that it sits for four days a week and that we have never had any complaints at all about it being overworked. However, I will certainly let the hon. Member know should those complaints materialise, and no doubt he will do likewise.

Mr. MacColl: The hon. Gentleman has founded his figures on the period ended 30th September. By a fortunate chance they happen to be lower figures than those for the period ended in March. Therefore, it would look as if the burdens on the tribunals were a good deal heavier in 1961 than they should have been.

Mr. Corfield: Actually, I think that the increase comes in the early part of this year. It is always difficult to tell the cause of a rise of this sort. There is, as we all know, a general pressure of demand in London and the other big cities. There have been increasing rents, and it was, of course, the period of a very striking increase in Commonwealth immigration, and that, whether we like it or not, has an effect on the pressure for housing.
Several hon. Members asked me how many tribunals there were in the country. The answer is forty. Over the period since 1st October, 1956, some twenty-two have amalgamated, thereby reducing the number, and in the past twelve months there was one amalgamation, that between Plymouth and St. Austell. But, of course, the limiting factor to amalgamations of this sort, particularly in the country districts, is geography rather than pressure of work. I am sure the Committee will appreciate that that is so, particularly in the more remote regions of Wales.
I will, perhaps, diverge at this point from the debate—and I am sure that the Committee will support me in this if in nothing else—to pay tribute to the people who man the tribunals. Their fees are very low indeed. It is quite clear that they do the work from a sense of public service and try their best to give a fair decision. I would impress upon hon. Members, and particularly upon the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West that they are not told in the Act to settle the rent on the basis of a market rent. They are told to do what they regard as reasonable, and that, of course, is a matter of opinion. It has always been regarded as such, and there is no attempt to base it on the rental evidence of the neighbourhood.

Mr. Loughlin: I do not want to pursue that, because I never said it. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the

figures he has produced. He will recall that I have raised this question on a number of occasions. He said that there are forty tribunals in England and Wales at the moment and that twenty-two have amalgamated. I asked—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has the figure—how many of them have ceased to exist.

Mr. Corfield: As far as I am aware there is no area not covered by a tribunal. In other words, there has been no complete decease of a tribunal but always an amalgamation leaving the area covered, though by a tribunal covering a larger area. As far as I know that has always been the pattern.
A number of hon. Members gave instances, and I have no doubt that they were correct in what they said, of various forms of evasion of the decisions of the tribunals.
It started with my being a little surprised—and the hon. Member for Widnes mentioned that fact—at some of the methods described by him. Some of the other methods, mentioned later, were quite horrifying. The conclusion that hon. Members tried to draw from that was that the Act was not working because people were frightened to go to the tribunals, and that therefore there must be some other means of policing the Act. I think that is a fair resumé of what a number of hon. Members said—or a fair conclusion to be drawn from what they said.
But surely the local authority is the place where most of these people will have been in seeking relief from their housing troubles anyhow. It is the public health authority, and it is responsible for overcrowding, and I take the hon. Member's point that there may be some degree of fear that the overcrowding provisions will be enforced to their disadvantage. On the other hand, what other authority, or what other body, can conceivably have a better knowledge of housing conditions and an ability to assess the position than the local authority, with its housing responsibilities, its public health responsibilities and, indeed, its responsibilities under this Act?
It is so easy to say that these things happen and that somebody ought to do something about it but not a single


suggestion has been made as to what other body could do this job better.

Mr. Mellish: Surely the Parliamentary Secretary will take the fair point that many local authorities in London would be inhibited from using their powers under the Public Health Act, especially in respect of overcrowding, because if they did and people were compelled to leave the houses they were living in the local authorities would have nothing to offer them. It is against that background that we have to consider the working of the Act.

Mr. Corfield: That is almost precisely what I said before. Of course there are grave disincentives against the use of those powers by local authorities, but it does not follow that because they are reluctant to use those powers they have to turn a blind eye and fail to exercise their powers under this Act.

Mr. Pavitt: What else can they do?

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Member is making our case. Here is an Act of Parliament which is not adequate in the circumstances which he is outlining, in the sense that more must be done to give local authorities some incentive to use their powers. Security of tenure should follow, in any case. It is against that background that local authorities should be allowed to act.

Mr. Corfield: With due respect to the hon. Member, my point is that there is nothing whatever to prevent local authorities taking up the case of a man or woman, under the operation of the Act, because of the overcrowding provisions. I think the hon. Member is with me on that. But we all admit that this is basically a question of providing more houses.
The hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) said that this was a question of pressure on the South-East of England and particularly on the London area. He went on to say that this was all deliberate Government policy. A large part of the reason for this pressure is an increase in the population. The Government are responsible for a lot of things, but I do not think that they are responsible for that. A large part of the problem, too, is the change in the general pattern of the population, in that

people are getting married younger, and creating more households, and people are also—thank Heaven—living longer and so creating more households.
So we have the situation—and it is worse in London because it happens to be an immigration area both for the rest of the country and for countries overseas—in which there is a substantial rise in the number of households in relation to the population, as well as a rising population. It is of some interest to note that it is only five or six years ago—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I was saying that the Committee were pressing for this debate because of their intense interest. But it seems that their interest has worn off with the arrival of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.
It is only five or six years ago that there were no less than 300,000 more households than houses in London. Now the figure is 65,000. Whatever else hon. Members opposite may think, they cannot deny that a very substantial advance has been made in the direction of the only cure for this problem, that is by equating the households with houses. We have had an actual decrease in the population in the central area.
The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West, as were several other hon. Members, was worried and critical about the three-month period. He made the point that if people went to the tribunal they would be giving themselves three months' notice. The hon. Member said that they would know that three months was the maximum that they could get and that the landlord would be likely to resent their action, and that would be that. But there is no limit to the number of periods of three months by which this security can be extended, and the tenant who goes to the tribunal in the first place is bound to know that he can come back again.

Mr. Loughlin: Can the hon. Gentleman imagine or understand what it would be like to live under those conditions in a house where the landlord also was living? That very often happens in furnished accommodation.

Mr. Corfield: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He has made my next point. A great many furnished lettings are in houses which are also occupied by the owner, and the personal element


comes in on both sides. We must realise that if we tighten up the security of tenure measures, as the hon. Gentleman wishes to do, a large number of people who own property which is too large for their own requirements and who, therefore, let furnished accommodation will cease to do so. This will mean that there will be even less accommodation to meet an increasing demand; and how that will help to solve the problem which the Committee is discussing is not easy to visualise.

Mr. Mellish: Before the hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Corfield: I am not going to give way any more now. I will willingly give way a little later.

Mr. Mellish: We shall come back to this again.

Mr. Corfield: I have no doubt of that.

Mr. Mellish: Then will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Corfield: Not at the moment—later on.

Mr. Mellish: A "tough guy"!

Mr. Corfield: We had a rather long speech from the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh). I find it very difficult to answer the hon. Gentleman without going into the whole building programme. But I would willingly do that, and I have no doubt that there will be opportunities to do so. There will be plenty of Supply Days, and I shall look forward to crossing swords with the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Member for Greenwich said that he recognised that there was no overnight cure for the problem, and that if we provided sufficient houses a free market and a free choice was a very good system. This is what we aim to do in the long run, but we certainly do not pretend that we have reached that situation now. He talked about evictions from furnished accommodation, and we had a slightly more lighthearted exchange on the subject of baths. The hon. Gentleman went on to land prices, which I am sure, Sir Robert, you would disapprove of our discussing now. He even spoke of the cost of owner-occupation, with a dig at interest rates. I do not think—

12 m.

Mr. Willey: On a point of order, Sir Robert. Is it in order for the Parliamentary Secretary to say that he cannot reply to a matter raised in the debate because apparently it would be out of order? This seems a serious reflection on the Chair.

The Deputy-Chairman: I understand that the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh), when speaking on the subject, was pulled up by the Chair.

Mr. Stewart: Further to that point of order. I do not think you have been quite correctly informed, Sir Robert. Although I believe my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) was pulled up at one stage, a great many of the points he made were not challenged by the Chair. Therefore it would be quite open for the Minister, if he wished, to answer them.

The Deputy-Chairman: The information I have had is that the hon. Member for Greenwich was pulled up. Of course it would be out of order for an hon. Member to cast any reflection on the Chair.

Mr. Corfield: Of course I withdraw any possible reflection on the Chair. The point I tried to make, and I made it to the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) when he was in the Chair and he willingly accepted it, was that if I went into the full story behind all the problems which have been raised I should be widening the debate beyond the extent to which I ought.

Mr. Mellish: Will not the Parliamentary Secretary agree that the problems arising from furnished accommodation in particular areas arise because of the lack of alternative accommodation? That being so, is it not reasonable for him when talking about furnished accommodation to argue whether or not there are alternative measures which could be taken which would lighten the strain and pressure on furnished accommodation? The point I made was that there were certain things the Government could do which would have a direct bearing on the pressure on furnished accommodation and would therefore lighten the problem. I should have thought that was completely relevant.

Mr. Corfield: I think that if we debated that we could get very wide indeed of the subject of the debate.

Mr. Mellish: Just try.

Mr. Corfield: I will try all sorts of things if the Committee will give me an opportunity.
I must admit that I found it a little difficult to follow the hon. Lady the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, North (Mrs. Slater). I am sorry that she is not now present. She raised some matters about the connection between this Act and rateable value and rating assessments. I had some difficulty in following that, but I shall certainly read it in HANSARD with interest and write to her if there is anything that I have misconstrued.

Mr. Mellish: The hon. Gentleman made a very important point about tribunals and the knowledge of those who went to them that they had powers of extension of tenancy and so on. In the survey of people in a hostel it was found that 30 per cent. had been evicted from furnished accommodation. How does the hon. Gentleman marry that fact with what he said about their knowing the powers of the tribunal and it then being not half so bad?

Mr. Corfield: I took it that the hon. Member assumed that the three months was the limit. I am not going to cross swords with him about whether I understood him rightly or not, but I took it that he assumed that. The three months is the limit of one stretch, but there can be more than one period of three months, although I think it would be rare to find a tenancy extended for twelve months. The reason that people are in the situation mentioned by the hon. Member is that fewer people are prepared to share their houses. Much of the rented accommodation is in houses occupied in part by the owner, and there is no doubt that there is a smaller stock of this accommodation. People are spreading themselves more. Some of the houses have changed hands to bigger families. There is a decrease in the supply of this type of accommodation.

Mr. Mellish: Surely that is not right. The vast majority of those in the L.C.C. hostels who had been evicted from furnished accommodation were there because they had in some way broken the

terms of the lease of the furnished accommodation, for example in having children when children were barred by the terms of the lease. We do not consider the Act satisfactory and we want a different sort of Act. That has been the point of the argument all the evening.

Mr. Corfield: This does not alter my argument that there is a reduction in the supply of this type of accommodation, whether the Committee likes it or not. There is at least a steady, if not an increased, demand and this is bound to lead to some sort of bottleneck.

Mr. Pavitt: Are you suggesting that that is the general picture? In my constituency 55 per cent. of the accommodation is still shared. Are you talking of London as a whole?

The Deputy-Chairman: Order. The hon. Member must not address his question to the Chair.

Mr. Corfield: The Committee is well aware that many of these housing problems are local or intensified in certain areas. Taking the country as a whole there are only 55,000 households in excess of the number of houses. If the problem were evenly spread either between the regions of the country or between the various parts of London it would be a relatively small problem; but three-quarters of the difficulty is that it is not spread in this way. I fully accept the point that there are different patterns in different areas, and probably this is bound to be the case.
I come to the hon. Member for Islington, East, who spoke just before the second debate started. He argued, on the one hand, that this was not a satisfactory Measure, and, on the other hand, that conditions were such that it had never been more needed. I was not quite certain which conclusion we were supposed to reach. He attempted to make the point that the conditions today were wholly different from those when the Act was introduced. It was introduced in 1946 at a period of intense pressure for housing. Whatever the defects of the Government's housing achievements alleged by the Opposition, there are nearly a million more houses today than there were then, and with that improvement and the improvement in the balance between households and houses, it is


difficult to see why an Act which was so good in 1946, when the pressure was far greater, should be so bad today because it is under a Conservative Government.

Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Gentleman should not be satisfied.

Mr. Corfield: Of course one should not be satisfied, but an element of humility from those who introduced it might make it easier to accept the criticism.
I want to end by referring to the L.C.C.'s comments on the matter. I have the minutes of the general purposes committee who recently considered the whole problem.

Mr. Mellish: My hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mrs. Corbet).

Mr. Corfield: It is signed by the hon. Lady. It refers to the state of the law under the Act which we are considering and the Rent Act. It suggests a form of amendment somewhat similar to that put forward tonight—increasing the security—and it ends with this sentence:
We are advised that although the extension of control suggested would no doubt prevent some families from being rendered homeless because of the protection afforded, it would not assist homeless families in the lower income groups in London to find accommodation within their means. The effect of differences in the control in London and in the provinces is difficult to assess, but it might be that they would attract population into the area although the restriction on available accommodation due to greater security of tenure would make it harder for them to find accommodation. Any such movement would add to the problems of existing homeless families and would aggravate the problem from the Council's point of view.
It must be clear that any attempt to increase control is to give advantages to those who already have accommodation but at the expense of those who have not. That would really be legislation in favour of the haves and at the expense of the have-nots, and, although I believe some odd things of the Opposition, I do not believe that they would accept that.

Mr. Loughlin: I do not quite understand the hon. Gentleman's reference, in this context, to providing legislation for the benefit of those who have against those who have not. Will he develop that point?

Mr. Corfield: I think it is clear that if existing tenancies are controlled, we sterilise a good deal of property in that we produce a disincentive to people to move out, even though the premises may be under-occupied. That is a disadvantage to those who are looking for accommodation and those who would benefit by people moving out and providing more accommodation.

Mr. Pavitt: I recognise that the Parliamentary Secretary has had no easy task this evening, but I must confess that I am profoundly disappointed at the reply that he has given to the debate which preceded his comments. He tells us that the population has grown and that people are marrying younger. He gives other global statistics. But we were aware of those things before. What we were looking for from the Government Front Bench was some action which would deal with the problems these things provide. I hoped he would answer the questions which were asked by my hon. Friends and give an assurance of the possibility of ameliorating the conditions in which so many people live.
It was satisfying to have from him confirmation of the weight of the tribunals' decisions in London, and the figures that he gave will be most useful to us in future debates on this problem. The fact that a large majority of these cases are in London—I believe the figure for London is 3,314 as against 2,180 elsewhere—indicates that the London Members on this side of the Committee who are so interested in the problem have been supported by very strong statistical backing from the Front Bench opposite. I join with the Parliamentary Secretary in the tribute he paid to the members of the tribunals, but I think that the numbers of cases that he has given makes it difficult to prove one thing or the other.
One of our difficulties is not the way in which the Act operates for those who go to the tribunals but the numbers of people who ought to go to the tribunals and who never do so. When we are examining the possibility of renewing the Act, we should also consider whether there should be some changes in legislation covering the tribunals which would encourage people to use them more and perhaps give them the necessary teeth.
Neither can I accept the Parliamentary Secretary's complacency about the fact that after three months it is possible for people to apply for a renewal of a further three months. I think anyone who has had the problem of trying to set at rest the minds of constituents who are faced with going to a tribunal, with the threat of the roof being taken from over their heads at the end of three months, will agree that this perpetual insecurity is so abhorrent that some means of altering the situation must be found. As the Parliamentary Secretary rightly said, the conflict often going on under one roof between landlord and tenant only makes the acute misery even worse.
12.15 a.m.
In 1946, when the Act was passed, the situation was very different. The Government at that time had a housing policy designed to encourage the maximum amount of municipal ownership of rented property, and, inevitably, there were not the same pressures upon furnished lettings. Nevertheless, it was necessary to have an Act of some kind to deal with that situation. Since then, there has been legislation affecting the issue, and there have been great changes in social conditions. There has been the inevitable deterioration in places where there is much slum property which has become more "slummy" and required more drastic attention from the local authorities.
The Act is inadequate for present needs. While we continue, year after year, to perpetuate it, we fail to secure the real safeguards which we should provide for the tenants of rented property.
I will give an example of the kind of situation we encounter in places like Willesden. A man and wife and three children are evicted. I had such a case only last Friday week. The two older children are put in care homes The welfare services will provide for them in separate hostels. The baby is eighteen months old and the mother will not part with it. So the couple rent accommodation, one room, and pay £3 10s. a week for it so that they may keep the baby with them, while the other two children are away, one at Enfield and the other at Chingford.
The room in which they have to live is furnished, so-called. Cooking facilities are a gas stove on the landing. Each morning, about twelve people line up with frying pans and eggs in the hope of being able to cook on the one cooking stove provided.
The man is in good steady work. He earns £11 10s. a week regularly, and he has been in the same employment for twelve years. But he cannot cope with this sort of situation. Obviously, £3 10s. a week for the room is too much. When I suggest that he go to the rent tribunal and inform him of his rights under the Act, he is too scared to do so lest he and his wife should have to leave and be parted from their baby. Every hon. Member who is a parent can sympathise with that kind of reaction.
The Act goes some way, but it does not meet present needs. We have supported the Amendment in the hope that, perhaps, if we refuse to renew it now we may in the future get the kind of protection for our people which is really required.
The problem is aggravated in a place like Willesden because we are so near to London that people about to do so are prepared to pay exorbitant rents, with the consequence that the whole level of the market is raised and those in ordinary jobs cannot cope. Their only means of redress is to go to the rent tribunal, but they know that, if they do so, they will be likely to be evicted after three months.
The situation is aggravated by the pressure for land. We have none in Willesden for rebuilding. As I said in the debate on the Gracious Speech, the last piece of land we were offered was a quarter of an acre for £28,000. What local authority can attempt to ease the situation by building council houses when the land costs £112,000 an acre, even with very high densities, which Willesden now has? Even with the Minister's promise to the House that he will help councils in this kind of situation, I am not sufficiently optimistic to hope that he can do anything when the land costs £112,000 an acre.

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Member will, of course, take into account the expensive site subsidy, although I recognise his general point. A quarter of an acre


is very little help, in any event, in this case.

Mr. Pavitt: This matter will no doubt be brought to the Minister's attention again and again from areas in Greater London which have the same problem.
I can quote another case, with which the rent tribunal is unable to deal. It is a case of broken marriage. Because young married people do not have sufficient savings, they cannot put down the deposit for a house, and as they cannot get council accommodation—we have a waiting list of 3,000—they are forced to find rented property somewhere. A case which I have had within the last few weeks is not an isolated one but is typical of what happens.
The young man in question came to me. He is married and his wife has gone back to live with her parents, because the only accommodation they could get was to rent a room in his parents' house, but the mother-in-law could not get on with the wife. This is a common enough occurrence. Practically every hon. Member representing a London constituency will have had a case like this. In this instance, however, it was the second time of asking. The same thing happened four years ago.
The man married and a family was started. Because of pressure of accommodation, the couple stayed with his people. Things did not work out and the wife went back to her own family. Thus, for a period when the marriage was still intact, the wife lived with her folks and the husband with his and the children commuted back and forth between the two. This led to the inevitable divorce. The man now states that he has reached precisely the same point again in his second marriage. How often does this kind of thing happen? I cannot say to the man, "There is sufficient rented accommodation where you can get away from both families, for which a tribunal can fix a reasonable rent, which will enable you at least to solve your personal difficulties and therefore, perhaps, have hope of a happy married life."
It is surely an elementary requirement that if a young couple start out on married life together, they should have the opportunity of building a home of their own and having a family without

these pressures, which are caused by the shocking housing conditions in the Greater London area and by the racket which goes on in rented property, which does not permit them to get a decent start.
Then, there is the kind of problem for which, again, the Act does not make provision but which the rent tribunal has to deal with, although ineffectively. My hon. Friends have mentioned the friction that arises in rented property with shared bathrooms and lavatories. I will not weary the Committee with the many kinds of cases of this kind in my constituency, as one of the things I am proud to record is that the Willesden International Friendship Committee, which seeks racial integration between the many immigrants in my area, deals with these matters week in, week out on a casework basis.
There is, however, constant friction from other points when there is common use of property. People have to go through somebody else's premises to get coal, as happens when winter starts, from a bunker in the back yard. In most cases in my constituency, it is literally a hack yard and not a garden. There are innumerable cases of friction which arise over the common use of a scullery or of a passageway from the upstairs in the premises, to the coal stored in the back yard. Rent increases can arise because of that and can go before a tribunal. They are not helped by the continuation of the Act. Precisely the same kind of problem emerges every Monday morning over the use of two tines in a small hack yard for the drying of washing. Friction arises. One of the ways a mediator helps is by persuading the landlord to put in a pulley which can be used from the top floor of the house, so that the tenant upstairs does not have to go through the downstairs premises. All these problems may sound light and facetious, but to a wife trying to bring up a family in such conditions they are a day by day heartbreak and a tragedy.
Another problem is that a tribunal may in all good faith give a wrong decision. The Act does not help over that, and it is a matter with which legislation should deal. I have sent to the Minister recently—I am still awaiting his reply—a case which occurred only last week.


The appellant went to the tribunal and appealed to be maintained in the house. I think the case went finally to the county court and as a result, the tenant had to vacate the premises. One of the main grounds for the county court's decision, apart from the amount of the rental, was that the housing need of the owner was greater than the housing need of the tenant. Yet when the premises became vacant—two furnished rooms—what happened was that they were let again at a higher rent. Whereas the rent was previously £3 10s. it was made £6 15s. And the premises were let to somebody not a member of the family of the landlord at all. I have put this case to the Minister and no doubt he will give me his advice in due course. The continuing year by year of the Act of 1946 does not help in cases of that kind.
We have pressure arising from the fact that in a three-month period 20 per cent. of the advertisements for furnished accommodation in my constituency, according to a survey taken by an officer of the London Council for Social Service, included the words "No coloured". It was rather a thorough survey. I was rather surprised that one advertisement said, "No coloured. No Welsh". I do not know what the Principality had done to offend that particular household. Fair enough, I suppose. The landlord who owns and lives in the premises has the right, I suppose, to choose who shall occupy them, but the fact that racial discrimination is practised by landlords inevitably makes this a far more acute problem, and makes the work of the tribunal doubly hard. If we had fresh legislation perhaps this point could be dealt with in a more satisfactory manner.
Then there is the case which the rent tribunal cannot deal with, and which many of us see. I am very pleased to see nearby in the Chamber the hon. Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Skeet), because we spent a very pleasant time together—pleasant for us in a way; unpleasant because of what we saw. We saw old people living in single rooms and receiving "meals on wheels".
12.30 a.m.
On that occasion we saw the tragedy of people in the evening of their lives

living alone in rented accommodation with inadequate resources. I think of an old lady of 79 or 80 walking around the place with flowing garments likely to catch fire at any moment from an open oil heater. There was no possible way of getting the landlord to make the place fit for her to live in, and it was not possible to provide her with other accommodation more suited to her needs. If we refused to continue this Act, perhaps some of these problems might be examined by those drafting fresh legislation.
There is also the racket in rented property when the furnishings are perhaps the most minute piece of lino and a spare wooden chair but additional furnishings are offered at an exorbitant price so that, in effect, the person is paying "key money" for a furnished room. Most hon. Members, certainly those in the London area, are familiar with these problems. In some cases we can make representations and find ways of dealing with them at the local authority level, but in the main we look to legislation to provide safeguards and enable tribunals to do their job properly.
How can tribunals fix a reasonable rent when the sky is the limit because of nearness to London? What should one do when in a tenement block one family which happens to be prosperous is able to pay an extremely high rent and the landlord can say to the tribunal "From Flat No. 12 I am receiving £6 10s. per week, so it is obvious that that is a reasonable rent. Eleven others are paying only £3 a week", and the tribunal says "We will make those other rents £5 10s. a week"?
Practically every day the newspapers tell us that there are so many shopping days to Christmas. In my constituency 188 families are broken up, the children in care and the parents in hostels or pitiable furnished rooms at exorbitant rent. It would be a fine thing if we could give such people a Christmas gift from this House of a reunited home. Even if on this occasion the Committee decides that this legislation must be continued, let us do something for these people for Christmas 1963.

Mr. Corfield: Sir Robert, I understand that I made a mistake in quoting a figure. I apologise to the Committee and


would like to correct the error. I am given to understand that in talking about the excess of households over houses at present I said it was 65,000. It is 165,000.

Mr. Stewart: We are obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I am not surprised to hear the correction. I was extremely surprised by his original figure.
I see that we now have with us a London, or Greater London, Member apposite. Whether the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. A. Brown) is to be described as a Conservative London Member is still to be defined. We also have the presence of the Leader of the House and of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. I am sure that our action earlier in seeking to report Progress so that Members opposite could collect their forces—the hon. Member for Tottenham, the Leader of the House and the Minister—was well justified.
Since the Minister is here, I trust that he will make later on some contribution to the debate, because, quite candidly, we did not think much of the reply, if it can be called that, of his Parliamentary Secretary. He referred to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) and excused himself from not replying to it by assuming that he would be out of order. As I pointed out at the time, while at one point my hon. Friend seemed to be straying a bit from a narrow interpretation of the business, what he said was unchallenged and clearly in order and should have been replied to. Indeed, even if there had been a danger of the Parliamentary Secretary getting out of order, a man of spirit would have taken the risk and not contented himself with a narrow, jejune interpretation of the business.
The Parliamentary Secretary also referred to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher). He said it was difficult to understand what my hon. Friend wanted. That was not a difficulty experienced by anyone this side of the Committee. I will explain to the hon. Member what the point at issue is. We say that this Act is quite inadequate in present circumstances, but we know perfectly well that if we simply let it expire and put nothing in its place we would

create an impossible position. It should not be beyond the wit of the Parliamentary Secretary to understand that. That is what my hon. Friend was saying. It is a common point and one that very commonly has to be made on expiring laws.
The hon. Gentleman also said he would welcome a little more humility from this side of the Committee. If he were here, I would be able to tell him that we would welcome from him a little more attempt to do the job of a Junior Minister properly; he has shown very little of that so far in his office. We hope that the Minister, whose ability and application to the job we respect, whatever we think of his policy, will try to remedy the deficiency.
We start with the nominal definition of the business before us, which is whether this Act should continue in existence for another year. When we have temporary legislation on a subject like this and sees that we have gone on continuing it year by year for 16 years, we may well begin to feel that there is something unsatisfactory about the situation. Where we have legislation, like some of the earlier Acts we have been dealing with today, which gives rather special powers to the Executive, there is a case for having it put before Parliament annually year by year, and when we do that we are merely recognising that special jealousy of the Executive which Parliament thinks it right to express on certain topics. But this is a matter of straightforward social policy.
When the Act was passed in 1946, it met the circumstances of the time and it was thought by everybody that there was no need for more than a temporary Act, or that if the need continued, the temporary Act would be replaced by some permanent Measure which would embody the lessons of the experience of the years since 1946. After all these years we are still renewing the same Act, although every time we do hon. Members point out that, whatever the Act might have done in 1946, it does not suit the present circumstances. We therefore have to ask whether we want to continue to deal with this matter on a temporary basis. Is it not time to have permanent legislation?
Surely that is the purpose of the debate —to make the Government run the


gauntlet of criticism. If they say, "We want you to do this rather messy thing, not to pass a proper permanent Act and not to bring these powers to an end, but to go on on this 'on tick' basis for another twelve months", it is quite proper that they should have to run the gauntlet of criticism. It was his unwillingness to understand that which made the Parliamentary Secretary's speech so unsatisfactory.
If we apply ourselves to that job, one of the questions which we must ask at once is whether there is any prospect in anything like the near future of there being no need for a Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act. If there were, if we had genuine reason to believe that in a year or two we would not need to control the rent of furnished houses, Parliament could happily agree to let this Act run on for another two years before coming to an end. But we know that there is not the least chance of the control of the rents of furnished dwellings being unnecessary in two, or five, or possibly ten years. The evidence is all in the other direction, as is shown by the figures of cases brought before the tribunals.
Let me give a rather different figure in this connection, not the number of cases brought, but the number of cases in which rents have been reduced, that is to say, not only was the case brought, but it was overwhelmingly clear that it ought to have been brought, and where the tribunal decided that the case was within its jurisdiction and was one in which the rent ought to be reduced. In round figures, there were 2,300 such cases in 1960 and 2,900 in 1961, an increase of slightly more than 25 per cent. Those were undoubtedly cases in which the tenants would not have been getting their legal rights if the case had not been brought. In face of that, we cannot seriously pretend that we are anywhere near a position in which rent control of furnished houses will not be necessary.
12.45 a.m.
There is another interesting thing among the figures which have been given by the Parliamentary Secretary for the different parts of the country, for they show to what a terrible extent this is a London problem. About 60 per cent. of all the cases in the Kingdom are

London cases. That does not mean that we do not find the problem in a fairly acute form in other large cities, but it is pre-eminently a London problem and that is why, although at times we may have smiled, we were not being flippant when we commented on the absence of Government supporters representing London constituencies.
I mentioned the figure of the number of cases in which rents were reduced, but we all know that for every one such case there is probably at least another one, or two, which ought to be brought but which is not brought because of the tenant's fear of the consequences.
It is true that if one brings the case to court one gets a certain period of security of tenure. But one cannot be sure that one will ever get more than three months. The court may extend the period, but one cannot be certain that it will. One knows that one will have an extremely unpleasant time during those three months and that at the end of the period, or as soon as the court will allow it, one will go for certain. That is why when we find the number of cases where the court reduces the rent rising by 25 per cent. we may be quite certain that behind those figures, like the submerged part of an iceberg, there is a very great mass of overcharging against which this legislation is a partial but, while it lasts, an indispensable deterrent.
That is why we have said, and I adhere to the view, that the power of the court to grant in the first instance a longer period of security of tenure should be increased. The Parliamentary Secretary made some remarks about this aspect of the problem which showed how little he understands it. His argument—I am sorry that he is not now here to tell me if I am representing him, though I do not think I am—if I understood it aright, was this. If we gave people who live in furnished dwelling security of tenure for longer periods we should be, what he called, freezing the pattern. He said that would play into the hands of the people who are in possession, those whom he called the "haves", as against the persons who might get into the dwellings in their place, whom he called the "have nots". He called that favouring the "haves" as against the "have nots"
But has the Parliamentary Secretary considered that if there is only very limited security of tenure, the more limited it is the easier it is for the landlord to say to his present tenant, "Get out because I have another tenant in view who in a number of ways will be more convenient to me. In the first place, I want to put in your place a tenant who, in defiance of the law and under the counter, will pay me more than the rent which the tribunal says is the right rent for this dwelling. Secondly, you may be a tenant tiresome enough to have children. I want the house let to someone who does not intend to have children. Or you may be an elderly person, and I am not sure that I want the moral responsibility of taking someone into my house who might be seriously ill or have a fall on the stairs. I want a young, fit tenant who ensures for me a good rent and no responsibility at all"?
The less security of tenure there is for everyone, the easier it is for the tenant with plenty of money in his pocket and with all the advantages on his side to get somewhere to live and the harder it is for the poor tenant, the elderly tenant, the tenant with children, the tenant with perhaps in his family a person who is a bit awkward, to get somewhere to live. That is what the Parliamentary Secretary does not understand. I think the hon. Gentleman's ideal world is one in which nobody will have more than a day's security of tenure and where tenants will be moving around, being evicted from one accommodation and moving to the next like a stage army. The Parliamentary Secretary will be consoling himself by saying, "There is no frozen pattern here—there is flexibility and the free play of the market."
I think that the point I have made is a serious one. The lack of security of tenure acts against the weakest competitor in this harsh jungle, the market, at the present time. I hope that when, as a result of this debate, the Government consider permanent legislation they will consider that point.
Another point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Widnes (Mr. MacColl) which, again, was misunderstood by the Parliamentary Secretary, was that which related to the part that should be played by local authorities in this matter. A case can be brought before a tribunal either

by a tenant or by a local authority, on its own instance. My hon. Friend was pointing out that much more could be done if local authorities made wider use of that power. He was not suggesting some other kind of authority, as the Parliamentary Secretary seemed to think, but that there should be greater use by local authorities of their power, on their own motion, to bring cases before the court. In the light of this debate and the undoubted abuses and hardships that occur in this furnished lettings situation, the Minister should therefore consider circularising local authorities and drawing their attention to their powers in this respect.
The less security of tenure there is the harsher the situation for the tenant who is the weak competitor. That is all part of the general picture around the country, and particularly in the Metropolis. The dice are loaded against the tenant, and it is not a lot of good talking about the free flow of the market when the supply and demand position is such that the tenant is in this desperately weak bargaining position all the time.
If that argument does not commend itself to hon. Members opposite, I would point out that it is not only against the tenant that the dice are loaded; they are also loaded against the good landlord. I was pointing out just now a number of reasons why a landlord may be prepared to say to his tenant "Get out. I am going to put somebody else in." No hon. Member on this side of the Committee would deny—and many of us tonight have firmly stated this—that not all landlords are merciless; we know that there are plenty of exceptions to disprove that allegation. A man who owns property of this kind, in this jungle of a rent market that is London today, may start out by saying, "I will try to behave, not necessarily quixotically but decently; I will not fling an old lady out merely because I do not want the responsibility of having her on my property; I will not turn a couple out because they have children, and I will not turn out people who have been good tenants for a number of years in order that I can put in another tenant who is prepared to pay me a pound a week more than the law allows me". Such a landlord will find, very soon, that there are plenty of other landlords who


think that he is a precious behaving in that manner.
The law as it stands now, both by what it permits and what it is powerless to forbid—although it tries to—makes the path of the voracious easy and the path of the landlords who want to behave decently very difficult. That is the real trouble. Bernard Shaw drew our attention long ago to the fact that if we want people to behave well we must have laws under which it looks a little more sensible to behave well than to behave badly. When we create a situation in which it is notoriously true that it pays better to behave badly, we cannot hope that individual virtue will always prevail against that continuing temptation.
I believe that it was the Prophet Isaiah who said,
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place …
Our modern practice is different; for the person who does this it is not woe, but congratulations; it is that kind of person who does well. It is woe to his unfortunate tenant, and woe—comparatively—to the landlord who tries to behave decently. Why does this situation exist, and why is it getting worse?
I come now to the only point in respect of which I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary. He pointed out that less accommodation of this kind was coming on to the market. That is one of the results of the Rent Act, for this reason. Although this control over furnished accommodation is a rather feeble instrument and not really adequate to meet the situation, it is at least an instrument. If the accommodation is turned into unfurnished accommodation there is no control at all. It would pay a landlord to get rid of the tenant of furnished accommodation and let it as unfurnished. After all, as several hon. Members have pointed out, the physical jab of turning furnished accommodation into unfurnished is not very difficult. It is only necessary for the landlord to take up the linoleum and take the chair downstairs into his own part of the house and then he has totally uncontrolled unfurnished accommodation to let. No wonder we are getting what

the parliamentary Secretary calls a bottleneck.
We are finding that there are more properties in London standing empty and for longer periods. We know from the report of the Ministry after an inquiry into what was happening that 30,000 dwellings were decontrolled under the Act. The interesting thing was that eighteen months after decontrol the proportion standing empty was higher than before decontrol. That is a fact which makes the housing problem either for furnished or unfurnished accommodation no easier.
Another factor which is helping to create this situation is that London, as the Parliamentary Secretary said in one of his more delightful passages, happens to be a place to which people go. That is a simple way to describe this massive movement towards south-east England which is one of the major factors of our time—"it happens to be". Does the hon. Gentleman imagine that this is some curious whim of Mother Nature, which cannot be understood by the application to it of human intelligence? Does it occur to him that, with the application of even greater effort on the part of human intelligence, it might be something which could be mitigated?
It is true that if we do nothing at all about this whole situation, the problems of housing in London, and particularly those of tenants in rented accommodation, will become more acute. That is why we have so often urged on the Government a whole series of measures which could help to solve the housing problem generally and the problem in the South-East and the Metropolis particularly.
If we do not take such measures, we shall find that year by year when we are asked to re-examine the appropriate legislation, and despite the excellent intentions of the Government, the situation seems more serious. We shall be told that the figures of households and houses are more encouraging. But, unfortunately, we find that the number of homeless people keeps increasing. The number of people who go to the rent tribunals to get their rents reduced, because they were too high in the first place, keeps increasing. Those are the facts.
What should the Government bear in mind if they want the Committee to say, "Very well, we are not happy about this. But we recognise that we cannot tear up this Act now. You must have it for another year. But please study what has been said in the debate and put up a rather better showing in the next twelve months."? If they are to put up a better showing in twelve months' time, these are the things they have to be prepared to do. I shall be brief about them, because I do not want to take up too much time and I do not want to get out of order. I should mention briefly, however, what I think the Government need to do if we are not to find every year when we discuss this problem that somehow or other the inadequacy of this temporary piece of legislation is becoming more and more apparent.
1.0 a.m.
First, they have to provide for the tenant, whether in furnished or unfurnished accommodation, security of tenure. I do not suppose that by now, as a matter of pride, the Government could swallow the idea of repealing the vital Sections of the Rent Act, but they must look again at the question of whether it is wise to retain the full rigour of its provisions that every new tenancy is uncontrolled and that four week's notice is all that is required. The fact that unfurnished tenancies are held on that slender security can increase the number of people who from time to time will be desperately looking round for furnished accommodation or anything that will give them a roof over their heads. That is why it is relevant to mention unfurnished as well as furnished accommodation in this connection.
I think the Minister will find that there has been a shift of opinion in recent months on this matter. A few years ago it was regarded as a fad of the Labour Party to obiect to the Rent Act. I now find that social workers, people working in Citizens Advice Bureaux, people who usually are very careful to avoid any taint of partisanship, faced with the facts are saying to themselves and to others, "Can't we do something to prevent this ruthless power of eviction, often so ruthlessly exercised, which is one of the factors in the pressure on furnished

accommodation and in the problem of London's homeless today?"
Next, the Minister has to consider giving local authorities greater powers, or encouraging or even directing them, to make greater use of the powers they have, to get hold of properties and use them to meet housing needs. I believe one reason why people are prepared to squeeze themselves into inadequate furnished rooms and shrink from going to a tribunal which could reduce their rents is simply that they have no choice of anywhere else to go. That could partly be remedied if we were more rigorous to see that there are no unnecessary empty properties anywhere in the Metropolis. If local authorities were encouraged to make the fullest use of their powers of acquisition this could be done. We have argued before about whether the Government ought to pass laws giving local authorities powers of requisitioning properties, but even if the Government agreed to do that this minute we could not get the Measure through before Christmas and it would not be an immediate answer to the problem.
Local authorities ought to consider whether they are making full use of the powers of acquisition that they have and, if necessary, the powers of compulsory purchase to prevent undue pressure on the market of homeless people trying desperately to find some sort of roof over their heads, be it furnished or unfurnished. I say this on compulsory purchase, and it links up with the point argued between my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) and the Parliamentary Secretary about rents fixed by tribunals. The Parliamentary Secretary contended that the tribunal is entitled to use its own completely unfettered judgment without regard to rents of neighbouring property. I am not sure how correct he is legally, but I am sure that in fact if all over the neighbourhood rents are steadily rising, it is impossible that that will not influence a rent tribunal in the rent which it fixes.
Important in that connection is the encouragement which the Minister recently gave to landlords to screw rents up as hard as they possibly could. He did this in his reply about the compulsory purchase order in the borough which


I know so well—Fulham. He told the House at Question Time why he had not confirmed that order, and he said in effect that the tenant could afford the rent which was being asked—between four and five times the gross value. He stuck to the proposition that the means of the private tenant were one of the factors to be considered when deciding whether a rent was exorbitant.
I ask the Minister to consider the result of suddenly thrusting that new doctrine into what is now the law and practice about rents. A landlord finds that one of his tenants is quite well off, and at the first opportunity he has of doing it legally, he screws the rent up to the maximum which he thinks the tenant will pay. The local authority tries to intervene with a compulsory purchase order, but it cannot be shown that the tenant would be rendered homeless by the landlord's action because he is rich enough to pay the rent. That was the Minister's argument. The landlord can get away with it in that way.
He can then try it on a neighbouring tenant; he will try to get the rent up to the maximum which he can get with regard to that tenant's means. Then he can try it on the tenants who have not so much means. And what is one factor to be considered here? It is comparable rents in the neighbourhood. They have already been pushed up by the Minister's ruling in respect of the wealthiest tenants. This will be reflected in the judgment of the rent tribunal on furnished accommodation.

Mr. Loughlin: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making the point. I was in the Chamber in the previous debate, and although I would not attribute to the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland words which he did not use, I construed his remarks to mean that one of the ways in which the tribunal arrived at rents was to take account of the conditions in the locality and comparable rents. In practice, the statement of one junior Minister contradicts that of the other.

Mr. Stewart: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. Until the Parliamentary Secretary questioned it, I should not have thought that any reasonable person would have had any doubt about it—and I do not suppose that he has now that he has thought it over.
Certain other measures need to be taken if we are not to go on having, preeminently in London but in certain other parts of the country, too, this unhappy position of desperate pressure on accommodation, furnished or unfurnished; of people needing the protection of the law because the market is so harshly against them; of people finding that protection not adequate; and of hon. Members having to say in the House year after year, "We, the Opposition, have not the power to make the protection any better, and therefore we must let it go on, inadequate though it is."
If the Government want to improve that situation they can consider the measures which I have mentioned—the need for greater security of tenure, for a more vigorous policy of acquisition by local authorities in which they should be both permitted and encouraged by the Minister—

Sir Keith Joseph: I take it that the hon. Member is referring to purchase by agreement or compulsory purchase. He is not, I presume, referring to requisition.

Mr. Stewart: Although I do not retract anything that I said previously about requisition, I am not arguing that now, because we should have to pass an Act before the Government could do it. I am talking about things which could be done administratively under the present law. The other things beyond that are the bigger measures, the much greater programme of municipal house building and a real policy to plan the location of industry and the distribution of population and employment throughout the country.
While I am indebted to you, Sir Samuel, for allowing me to mention those subjects, I will not try your patience by attempting to develop the argument. But I am sure, with respect, that the Chair has been wise and generous to make a liberal interpretation of the rules of order throughout this debate, because in common sense one cannot really discuss the plight of the family in a room and a half on £6 a week—and that is not an exaggeration—or the plight of the homeless, without finding oneself drawn into the whole impressive complex of the housing problem.
If back-bench Government supporters, representing areas most affected, have not


been here to learn much tonight, let us at least hope that the Government themselves have learned something and that this will be reflected in action before we debate the same subject again next year.

Mr. Parkin: I think it is perfectly clear to everyone who has been in the Chamber in this and in previous debates —and, of course, it is obviously clear to the Chair because of the attitude that it takes on these occasions—that these debates would not take place year after year except for the existence of the problem of housing for ordinary working class wage-earning families in an area where there is no room for them.
I think I will leave it to the Minister to try to explain patiently to the Parliamentary Secretary tomorrow morning why his brilliant argument fell rather flat when he inquired why it was that the Labour Party was so satisfied that this was a good Act when it was passed and why it is a bad Act now. Perhaps the Minister will make sure that his Parliamentary Secretary understands that when the Act was passed it was supplementary to ordinary rent control, and it was intended to defend the limited amount of furnished accommodation that was then available from being exploited at grossly inflated rents for people who did not really want furnished accommodation.
Although I will leave it to the Minister to complete the education of the Parliamentary Secretary, I must say that I resent the remark that the Parliamentary Secretary made about an element of humility that ought to come into our approach. Does he really think that the Opposition on this occasion ought to come like the burghers of Calais? Do we have to ask permission to draw his attention to this subject? There are plenty of occasions when one does feel very humble indeed on this subject. A sort of humility of despair comes over me—[Interruption.]—something which is not within the experience of the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Dudley Williams)—when we have failed to help one of our constituents. [Interruption.] I think I might be spared this flippant derision from hon. Members who are not acutely concerned with the week-to-week disillusionment and despair of these cases.
We have enough to reproach ourselves with when we fail and find that a woman who was in our advice bureau because she was being turned out of furnished accommodation when her fifth child was coming, has died of an infected abortion in Paddington Hospital; and when a child lands up in the juvenile court because it was impossible for him to find any room in the evening to enjoy any family life. Sometimes one has to repeat these things. People who have not seen these conditions do not have to know them, and I am surprised very often how hon. Members and others who live in other parts of the country are really shocked when they come to meet the realities of the situation. On an occasion like this, one should not have to adopt any particularly humble attitude towards the Government in raising the matter.
1.15 a.m.
But I must not be distracted from my intention to speak to the Minister about furnished accommodation as such. It is a very important factor in the housing of London. I hope that his Ministry is doing some sort of survey. The rent tribunals now exist as a defence for people who do not want to live in furnished accommodation. There is never any complaint about the rent from people who do wish to live in furnished accommodation, and there are many of them. A young bachelor of 23, let us say, who is starting his career in London after being at university has no problem in finding one or two friends with whom to share the rent. It works out cheaper for them than it does for those who have to live in badly furnished, overcrowded accommodation without amenities such as is to be found in places like Willesden and Paddington. It is, in fact, dearer for people to live as they have to do in Paddington and Willesden than it is to live in Earl's Court in conditions about which the tenants would not complain.
I have previously asked the Minister to consider the subject of hotels. Hotels provide a type of furnished accommodation. There is an enormous range of types of furnished accommodation. People who live in accommodation of the kind provided by hotels do not go to the rent tribunal to complain that they are not allowed to keep pets. Some of those who supply luxury furnished


accommodation welcome tenants with pets. Houses tend to attract people with the same tastes, habits, and so on. One gets what one is prepared to pay for.
There is the problem of student accommodation. Surely, this will have to be referred to the Ministry of Housing at some time. I expect the Minister knows that the University of London made a calculation of the increase in the number of students who would require furnished accommodation in single rooms and hostels in London. I am told that the university authorities had the idea that they would advertise in the suburbs instead of trying to find accommodation at the centre. After advertising in the local papers in an effort to find families occupying a whole house who could spare one room, they had four replies.
The Minister will not be able to tackle this matter properly without taking into account what Dr. Beeching is doing. This may seem out of order, but one cannot discuss where a hostel ought to be placed outside the centre of London unless one arranges with the university authorities that they will start teaching at a time when students can come up on the line from the suburbs to the centre without competing with the ordinary rush-hour traffic. One cannot leave that out of one's consideration of where these thousands of people who come to London every year or two should be put.
There are very many people who legitimately seek this kind of accommodation. Post-graduates getting early experience, people called in from provincial branches of firms for a little training in London, nurses, Commonwealth students—all manner of people want furnished accommodation of some kind in London. It is difficult sometimes to define closely what is a student. For hundreds of years, students have gone abroad to other universities and combined a little work and a little study. Commonwealth students in many cases expect to be able to earn their living and save enough to be able to take a course.
Where are these people to live? Would it be profitable for the Minister to subsidise the local authorities in producing blocks of flats? My hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) quoted with horror—

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. The hon. Gentleman is going a little far from the Amendment, which deals with furnished houses.

Mr. Parkin: With respect, Sir Samuel, I was asking that some should be built, that there should be a policy to provide furnished accommodation, and that the function of the rent tribunal should be directed to furnished accommodation let to people who wanted it. I realise, Sir Samuel, that you are startled that I am concentrating on this fact. The need to have a policy and to have some control over furnished accommodation can hardly be out of order.

The Temporary Chairman: The hon. Member was referring to the subsidising of the building of flats. That has nothing to do with the control of rents.

Mr. Parkin: I am suggesting, Sir Samuel, that such furnished flatlets are the very type of accommodation that students and junior diplomats want. There are advertisements always in the quality papers asking for furnished accommodation of that kind. People want furnished accommodation for a year or two while they settle down. If the Government had a policy for this provision, it would release a great deal of other accommodation. [Interruption.] I have made the point to the Minister. Whether I have made it to some of his supporters, I do not know.
One last factor which is worth considering is that if such provision of furnished accommodation is planned for the sort of people who, for practical purposes, live "on the town", for whom the whole of London is open for their leisure time, one need not be so fastidious on the subject of density figures as when planning in an area which is a local community. It is reasonable to say that if we were providing for that sort of accommodation, we should not count it as heavily in the density figures as we should if we were providing the accommodation for larger families.
I suggest this to the Minister as one further way in which he might find space to carry out his other housing programme, which, of course, it would be out of order for me to discuss now. Through this debate, in which everyone has tried to look at the picture in the broadest sense, we may ask the Minister to think carefully


about the fact that to let furnished accommodation is not a disgrace. It is a skilled profession. It is part of the hotel and catering profession and, generally, it ranges over an immense variety of accommodation. If the Minister would consider giving encouragement to the development of that sort of business in such a way that it would release other blocks, there would be much more positive work for the Government, much less irksome work for the tribunals, less time would be occupied in discussing the problem on this kind of Bill every year and we should certainly be able to make great strides towards solving some of the other problems which we can properly discuss only in a wider housing debate.

Mr. John Diamond: As the hour is so late, I shall detain the Committee for only a short time. Nevertheless, I make the point to the Minister that it is not our fault that the hour is late and that this is a matter which all of us feel to be of intense importance. I hold it as criticism of the Government, and in particular of the Leader of the House, that we should be compelled to discuss at this hour something which is fundamental to the happiness of a great number of our constituents, in which hon. Members opposite should have found the same as I and every one of my hon. Friends have found, that the one topic we get in "surgery" time and time again is lack of housing and furnished accommodation. I regard it as a matter of criticism that the Government should compel us to discuss this vitally important matter at twenty-five minutes past one in the morning. Nevertheless, to demonstrate that I am interested in the topic and not in keeping the Committee up, I will make my remarks as short as possible.
We are grateful that the Minister is here We hope that at the end of the debate he will say something to put right the unfortunate impression gained by the Parliamentary Secretary. This is not a personal attack. The Minister should realise that the Parliamentary's Secretary's speech struck me and my horn Friends as one of utter complacency and a good deal of inaccuracy. His whole speech was based on the fact that although the position had been bad, it was getting better, that there was no reason to be worried about it and that if

only we waited long enough it would solve itself. The lack of households compared with the number the Parliamentary Secretary said—[Interruption] The, Minister was not here. I was. I was listening to the Parliamentary Secretary. I am not making up his speech. I was listening to him. I had no desire to take part in this debate until I had heard what the Parliamentary Secretary had to say, and but for his lack of knowledge—certainly of what goes in the City of Gloucester, if not in Gloucestershire, or his part of it: he certainly does not know whet is going on in Gloucester—he could not possibly have made the speech he did. It was based on a misapprehension, and he thought that the position is rather better than it is. It was based on the misapprehension that the position is three times as good as it is. He gave us the figure of 55,000 of households looking for houses, instead of 165,000, precisely three times as much.

Sir K. Joseph: Sir K. Joseph rose—

Mr. Diamond: I took down the figure. I will give way in a moment. I took down the figure. I wrote it down: 55,000. I could not understand it. I was going to challenge it as soon as I had the opportunity to challenge it. The Parliamentary Secretary did very courteously come to the Box afterwards and told us he could not have said that the figure he gave us was 55,000.

Sir K. Joseph: I am grateful to the non. Gentleman for giving way. I was here during my hon. Friend's speech, and there is a figure which is very familiar to us who take an interest in these matters in the Committee, and certainly in the Department, and it is 165,000 It would be easy in the course of making a speech, looking at notes rapidly, to say 65,000. That is what my hon. Friend said. and as soon as he sat down I pointed this out. He wanted to get up and correct it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, who said he wanted to help us in these matters, will help in the way he suggested as rapidly as possible.

Mr. Diamond: I must try to make the Minister realise that we are very dissatisfied by the whole tone of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech. He listened to what my hon. Friend the Member for


Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) had to say when replying to the Parliamentary Secretary, who, unfortunately, was not here to hoar him. But the Minister heard him. Surely he realises that we are very dissatisfied.
I want to refer to another inaccuracy. I recognise that the Minister has been good enough to call me "learned," but indeed I could make no such claim; but the Parliamentary Secretary, as far as I am aware, is a barrister, and I really cannot understand how, both as a barrister and as Parliamentary Secretary, he could have made the claim that the tribunal is not compelled to have regard to rents in the neighbourhood. I really cannot understand it. So far as I recollect, the tribunal has to have regard to what is reasonable, and how can any tribunal come to any conclusion as to what is reasonable without listening to evidence as to what other people pay for similar accommodation in the neighbourhood? This must be directly relevant and must affect the mind of any tribunal as to what is reasonable. I am sorry, but I just cannot accept what the hon. Gentleman said with regard to that, and it gives rise to lack of confidence as to whether he is really aware of the importance of this topic. I do recognise, of course, that he was helpful over the figures about this.
This is a matter which affects London —and my hon. Friends, particularly from London constituencies, have referred to this—which affects London more acutely than many other cities, but we would say it does affect other cities, and I am aware of this in the City of Gloucester. It affects it very considerably, and perhaps it is worth making this additional comment, that althougih the lack of accommodation is more acute in London generally the level of wages is higher there. We have this difficult situation of being short of accommodation in a city like Gloucester with the general level of wages not being sufficient to be able to cope with the demand which is made for accommodation of this kind.
It is quite unnecessary for me to go over all the points which have been made so fully with regard to the various difficulties about this type of accommodation

under this existing Act, but I would just make this one point, as apparently it is the case that some of us are more aware of it on this side of the Committee than the Parliamentary Secretary is, and it is the fact that we are short, and abominably short, of this kind of accommodation inevitably means that, no matter what Act we have, we cannot by law protect the tenant while we have got this fantastic shortage, no matter how strong the husband may be. So we must go to the tribunal and get the rent put right.
1.30 a.m.
The wife has to cope with it all day long. It is misery for her. I am sure the Minister appreciates this. It is a very human problem that we all know about. Wives come to us in tears telling us about all the problems involved in attempting to share accommodation. Women seem to be particularly sensitive about this, and it makes life unbearable for them. We shall never put the matter right until there are more houses.
I would address myself particularly to you, Sir Samuel, and say that what we are discussing is not whether the Act should be amended in a certain way but whether it should be included in the Bill or not. Therefore, I should have thought it was relevant for me to point to the reasons why it should or should not be included and to state what the background is. You will appreciate, Sir Samuel, that often an Amendment is tabled not to be carried to a vote but for the purpose of discussion, for it is the only way that can be obtained.
The very fact that the Act is in the Bill reminds us that it was put forward on the basis that it would be reconsidered in twelve months' time. It is not that the Government are paying us a courtesy by allowing us to reconsider this fundamental matter. It is merely playing fair with the Committee. Far from our having a little humility, the Government should be humble about coming again year after year asking us to continue an Act for twelve months when they know well that that is not what they mean. They do not mean that if we continue it for twelve months they will by then have solved the problem by providing the houses or producing another Act. The Government are asking us to continue an Act in which


they do not believe. There is far less reason for humility on our side than on theirs.
The point, Sir Samuel, is that one is compelled to discuss the background of housing generally in order to make the point whether the Act should be continued or not. With the greatest deference, I cannot see that one can discuss it adequately without putting it in relation to the general shortage of accommodation. There is pressure on furnished accommodation partly because there are not enough furnished houses and partly because there are not enough houses of any kind. I am bound to mention this to put the matter into proper perspective.
I want to put two points to the Minister since he is here because of the fundamental importance of providing rapidly much more accommodation of this kind and every other kind. First, we shall never solve our industrial productivity problem until we have more mobility of labour, and we shall never have more mobility of labour until, apart from other things, we have the houses for people to move to. Secondly, with regard to this fundamental problem of raising our productivity, the Chancellor himself said here two weeks ago that we had failed in this country because we had not had a sufficient increase in the population. This has been said by many others, including Colin Clark. Why have we not had a sufficient increase in population to enable us to have increased productivity? It is because we have not had enough people coming here. We have closed the doors. A moment ago the Parliamentary Secretary said that immigrants had caused an increase in pressure for rented accommodation in London—

Mr. Corfield: I am absolutely certain —and the hon. Member will, I am sure, see this in tomorrow's HANSARD—that I said that London has migration from both the rest of the country and outside.

Mr. Diamond: The hon. Gentleman made two references to immigration. I was listening carefully, as would be only proper when he is speaking. He referred to migration southwards and migration from outside. He was making the point that when one gets immigration there is more pressure on housing.

One of the ways to stop pressure on housing is to stop immigration. This is what the Government have done, with the result that there has been a net emigration.
But if the Government stop immigration they stop the increase in the working population and, as the Chancellor said, tie the country down to a position where it cannot increase productivity. Unless we get additional houses to provide accommodation for additional population from within and from without, we shall not, according to the Chancellor, increase our production and productivity. They have had experience of this in Germany. West Germany had an enormous increase in population through immigration from the East and built not 300,000 houses a year but 500,000, with a similar population to ours.

Mr. Loughlin: I think that my hon. Friends have been a little unfair to the Parliamentary Secretary. I am grateful to him for having sat throughout the debate taking copious notes. It must have been difficult for a junior Minister to sit all that time listening to speeches from this side of the Committee and not one in support of him from his own side.
I would like the Minister to make a reference to Section 8 of the Act, dealing with regulations. Section 8 says he may make regulations
… for prescribing anything which is required by this Act to be prescribed;
Most of us will agree without qualification that that is drawn a little wide. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will tell us what regulations have been drawn. We should have this information before agreeing to his request for the Act to be extended for another year.

Sir K. Joseph: I agree that we are really here discussing what is a small thread in the tangled skein of Metropolitan housing. The debate has been largely on the Metropolis. It introduced other cities as well, but to a much lesser extent.
It would be important to relate furnished accommodation to the total picture, but we all know that the real answer is not to concentrate on expanding one sector of accommodation, whether it be for students, as the hon. Member for


Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) was arguing, or for the mobility of labour, as the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) was arguing. All these different sectors will look after themselves once we approach the state of balance. We are a long way from it in London. Although we are a long way from it and we are not in the least complacent, it still remains true that we are less far from the state of balance than we were.

Mr. Loughlin: What is the state of balance?

Sir K. Joseph: The state of perfect balance is 2 per cent. more dwellings than households, perhaps 2½ per cent.—who can say? To provide a surplus of accommodation will achieve two things; it will give mobility and choice, and it will place a discipline on owners and landlords alike to maintain their property. But it is idle at this moment to discuss this perfect state, because we have not got it in London, and the reason we have not got it is due to some extent to prosperity.
It is the increased pressure of prosperity which has reduced the accommodation which is available for the poorest people in the Metropolis. I take this to be a truth which most of us have known all the time over the last few years, and it was emphasised in the L.C.C. report that as prosperity grew so the pressure would reduce the accommodation available for the poorest. We all know that the answer to this is more houses and more decentralisation, and I hope to be able to make a statement as soon as possible, as I have already announced, drawing together all the threads which are covered by that short reference.
In the meanwhile, we have to concentrate on the task immediately before the Committee this evening, namely, furnished accommodation. While with such a great shortage it is not effective or relevant to start worrying at this stage, about one sector of accommodation—and I think that the hon. Member for Paddington, North knows my respect for him —we have always to protect the poorest, and in this case that means that we must emphasise the rôle of the local authority.
The hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) emphasised the importance of local authorities adding to their stock.

That is important, because until we get more accommodation in general, private and public, we have to try to secure as much accommodation as possible for the poorest. That is why, against this background, I am encouraging local authorities to buy, by agreement and, if necessary, by compulsion, empty accommodation which they can keep available for the poorest families who have to work in London.
It is against that background that the Committee has to judge the place of the rent tribunals in handling furnished accommodation. It is quite true that rent tribunals are not a perfect instrument—they cannot be against this background of shortage. The hon. Member for Fulham urges that they should give more security of tenure. In a perfect world, one would be able to agree that that would be ideal, but the danger we face is two-fold. The first part of it was indicated by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary—that, in a condition of shortage, every time we protect one family we deny accommodation to another, or are in danger of doing so.
However, to my mind that is not the main risk which we run by too much emphasising the length of security. The main risk is that we shall make the conditions of letting lodgings so onerous that we will dry up the source. It is always open to the owner of a house to say, "I find these conditions too difficult; I shall sell the house, or I shall convert it and deal with it that way". I do not say that the resulting positon of the rent tribunal being able to give only limited security of tenure is ideal. But if we are too ambitious we shall reduce even the accommodation that exists. We all know one thing that the Act has definitely achieved, and that is that it has preserved for renting many houses that but for the Act would have passed into owner occupation. Therefore, I say to the Committee that imperfect though the instrument is and great though the remaining shortage still is, it is only sensible to continue the Statute for a further year.
I was asked by the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) a question about the rent—

1.45 a.m.

Mr. Loughlin: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the point that he was


making about the leasing of accommodation for rent or the retention of accommodation for rent as against sale, will he say whether he thinks there is any very great virtue in the retention of accommodation for rent in, say, the City of London, where rents were previously £200 a year and then became £600 a year, which is not uncommon, as a result of which the house which was previously available to a particular tenant ceases to become available to him because of the high rent? Is there any virtue in that?

Sir K. Joseph: I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to property in what are called "desirable area" of London. But I take the point, and I hope that he will be satisfied that I have emphasised throughout that the pressures of prosperity reduce the accommodation available for the poorest. That is common ground, I think. I was going, when the hon. Gentleman interrupted me, to deal with the point which he raised and to tell him that the Regulations to which he referred deal solely with procedural matters, that is, how to give notice and that sort of thing, and what should be written in.
Finally, I should like to take the point made by the hon. Member for Fulham, that we bring this Bill year by year to the House and that it is necessary to look a little way ahead to see whether by next year we can have a clearer view of the length of time for which it will be needed. I think that the hon. Member for Fulham and other hon. Members opposite recognise that this is not a short-term problem and that we cannot eliminate the remaining shortage overnight. We have halved it over the last ten years.
I must restrain myself from touching on the many other threads of this complex tangle of the Metropolitan housing position until I can make a full statement on it, but I would stress that nothing that I shall be able to say in that statement will remove the need to pass for another year. and it is only the coming year with which we are dealing tonight, this Statute.

Mr. Parkin: There is one question arising from the right hon. Gentleman's reference. He dismissed the points that I was making in my speech as not immediately relevant by saying that they were not so important. The right hon. Gentleman says that he is encouraging local

authorities to buy vacant houses. As far as an estate agent is concerned. a house full of furnished tenancies is a house with vacant possession. Would the right hon. Gentleman include such a house in his scheme and would he consider, arising from the point that I made, that if an authority were able to make provision in new form for the sort of people who want tiny little flats it would be very advantageous for it to buy houses at present occupied by people either in furnished accommodation or by elderly couples under old tenancies and remove them to smaller places? Would he not exclude from his mind the possibility of encouraging local authorities to buy houses of that type too?

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. Member knows from our personal contacts how enthusiastic I am that housing associations should deal with individual purposes like that. As for the legal question, whether local authorities have power to buy occupied property, I will take advice about it and write to him.

Mr. Willey: The question of student accommodation is of critical importance for university expansion, the right hon. Gentleman knows, since his own city of Leeds has shown the sort of difficulties which are faced by universities. The difficulties are twofold. First, there are the high rentals, which make it extremely difficult for both the older and the newer universities to obtain satisfactory accommodation for students, and, secondly, there is the lack of availability of this type of accommodation. If we are to get a rapid university expansion—and obviously we cannot build in time; the Government have started too late—we shall have to depend on the provision of this type of accommodation.
I noticed that the Minister of Education was with us intermittently, and I had hoped that he would intervene on this point. I should like an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that he is alive to this difficulty and is in consultation with the Minister of Education, and that every possible step will be taken. This is a general question which affects the availability of accommodation at rentals that the universities can afford and it is clear that some assistance should be provided by his


Department to see that all suitable furnished accommodation in the vicinity of universities, and particularly new universities, should be made attractive for this purpose, so that they can expand as quickly as possible.

Sir K. Joseph: There is bound to be conflict between worthy uses of objects of which there is a shortage. But I hope that the Committee will recognise that I do not build any houses; I have to react to the proposals of private or public enterprise—or semi-public enterprise, in the case of universities—and then it may come to me on appeal to decide for what purpose land is to be used. I recognise the importance of the point.

Mr. MacColl: The right hon. Gentleman gave us a fascinating preview of a statement that he is to make subsequently, and it is a happy note on which to end this debate—the knowledge that we are to resume this important discussion later on. I do not want to follow him in his housing theories any further than to make the remark—which is perhaps enough at two o'clock in the morning—that he rests his policy for London on the balance between accommodation and households. I hope that he will reflect that those are not independent variables, and that households are a function of accommodation. He can quickly get on dangerous ground if he tries to treat them as independents.
I do not want to say any more, except that if he had been making his speech in 1952 instead of 1962 it would have been an excellent speech, full of hope for the future and full of firm resolution, and all the rest. But the harsh fact is that we have had the Government for more than ten years and that it is a little late for them suddenly to find that there is a housing problem in London. That is not just a debating point, made post hoc; in 1956, when the Rent Act was under discussion, the one thing that I vividly remember was that we begged and implored the Government to make decontrol possible regionally, and to make possible the preservation of control regionally, as the extension of decontrol can be made regionally, under the Act. But the Government would not listen. They said, "No, there is no need for this". They were determined

to have decontrol throughout the country, and they ignored regional differences.
This is the major cause of the present crisis in London which we have been discussing so anxiously all through these long hours. It is too late for the Government to start inventing excuses. Some of my hon. Friends have said that we ought to vote against the continuance of the Act, because it is a wrong Act, which causes more suffering than good, and we want something more tough and vigorous. I sympathise with that view, but I am sure that in the present sensitive situation it is important to preserve such security of tenure and such control of rents as there is.
It would be disastrous to defeat this Act and leave nothing at all. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment, not with a feeling that the problems are solved but in the knowledge that we have no alternative.

Amendment by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. George Darling: I beg to move, in page 3, to leave out lines 37 and 38.
At long last I am able to move this Amendment. I shall not take a great deal of time, although I think that the issue is of considerable importance. The effect of the Amendment, if accepted, would be to repeal Part II of the 1953 Licensing Act. This is the part of the Act which perpetuates the licensing planning committees which were set up under the Licensing Planning (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1945; but, of course, only for one year. Section 67 of the 1953 Act said that Part II of the Act would continue in force only until March, 1954. So we have been renewing this part of the Act ever since then. I wish to explain why in my view that part of the 1953 Act should not be continued any longer. Were the Amendment passed the committees would cease to exist after 31st March next year.
My main complaint against most of the committees set up under this procedure is they appear to have exceeded the powers which Parliament intended them to have by their frequent objection to application for off-licences. As the Committee should know, the 1953 Act was a consolidation Measure. Part II is the 1945 Act with some amendments and


omissions. To understand why these committees were set up and what Parliament intended that their duties should be, one has to go back to the 1945 Act, because, of course, there was no discussion on the consolidation Measure.
Although the Act was passed in 1945, it was not passed by the Labour Government. It was a Measure of the war-time Coalition Government. It was designed to deal with a problem which everyone at the time thought to be urgent and important—how, after the war, in heavily damaged areas the distribution of licences of licensed premises should be made. There would be reconstruction and rebuilding, and in the course of the rebuilding it was envisaged that the character of some of the areas would be changed. Therefore the pattern of the licensed houses in the area would change.
It was felt that neither the licensing justices nor the local councils as planning authorities were the right bodies to decide how the new distribution of licensed premises should be planned. So committees were set up for each of the war-damaged areas, chiefly in London and the provincial cities which had been heavily bombed, and they represented the licensing justices and the local planning authorities.
2.0 a.m.
In a sense I suppose they were advisory bodies, but they were given a special power. It is this power, which they still have, which in my view is causing a great deal of trouble today. They have power to say to applicants for new off-licences whether an off-licence shall be granted or not, although still under the law the licensing justices are the final body to make the decision. In the 1945 Act, and continued in the 1953 Act, if a licensing planning committee has an application before it for a new licence and the committee objects to the application, the application cannot go before the licensing justices. The committees, not the magistrates, have the power in effect to decide whether new licences in any of the areas in which the committees still operate shall be granted.
I have been concerned for some time about the way in which these committees have dealt with applications for off-licences. I had better declare my interest, which started as a rather narrow one. Now I find that I am speaking on behalf of most grocers, most wine and spirit

merchants, most self-service stores and supermarkets in the country. I started by intending to draw the attention of the Government to the operations of this part of the 1953 Act as far as they affect co-operative stores applying for off-licences. I find that other people have been treated in the same way. Grocers, self-service stores, supermarkets and so on who ask for off-licences all agree with me that the present position has become intolerable.
I question very much whether the way in which these applications for off-licences are opposed or objected to by the licensing planning committees is in keeping with the spirit and the letter of the 1945 and 1953 Acts. It is also questionable whether the 1945 Act intended the committees to deal with off-licences. I am sure it will be argued that as the licensing law makes no difference between off- and on-licences in regard to the procedure for applications, both are covered in precisely the same way under the same legislation, but I am not so sure. To find what was Parliament's intention about the 1945 Act we have to read the debates on that Measure. Before doing so it is as well to look at the duties laid down for licensing planning committees both in the 1945 and the 1953 Act; the wording is the same. Section 56 of the 1953 Act says:
It shall be the duty of every licensing planning committee to review the circumstances of their area and to try to secure, after such consultation and negotiation as they may think desirable and by the exercise of the powers conferred on them by this Part of this Act, that the number, nature and distribution of the licensed premises in the area, the accommodation provided in them and the facilities given in them for obtaining food, accord with local requirements, regard being had in particular to any redevelopment or proposed redevelopment of the area.
There is not a word about off-licences in the duties laid down in the Act. Not only is there no reference to off-licences, but in the 1945 Act there was no reference to off-licences anywhere and that Act set up the committees. If one reads the debate on the 1945 Act one sees another peculiar feature. The then Solicitor-General, now one of our leading industrialists, Lord Kilmuir, in moving the Second Reading of that Bill, referred specifically to licensed houses and talked very learnedly and apparently with some personal knowledge about


eight-barrel houses and three-barrel houses, drinking areas and the duties of licensees, but he never mentioned off-licences in the whole of his speech, nor did the then Minister of Town and Country Planning, who wound up the debate; nor did any other speaker. From the beginning of Second Reading to the end of Third Reading of the 1945 Bill, off-licences were never mentioned once.
It was surprising that on one occasion Lady Astor and Sir Alan Herbert were in agreement in demanding that public houses should remain open all day to sell tea, coffee and food outside licensed hours, but even they never mentioned off-licences, and if one is to judge the purpose of the Act by all the speeches made on it, the only conclusion which one can reach is that neither the Government nor Parliament intended off-licences to come within the objecting powers of the licensing planning committees. From my reading of the debate it seems that Parliament intended that off-licences should continue to be within the jurisdiction of the licensing magistrates, without any intervention of the licensing planning committees.
At this time of the morning I will not summarise all the cases —or even give a selection of them —which have come to my notice since I put the Amendment down. These are cases in which I think that local planning committees have misused their powers or, if the word "misused" is considered too strong, have gone far beyond what Parliament intended. I have scores of examples to quote of the peculiar way in which applications for off-licences have been turned down.
What happens is that some grocer or wine-and-spirits merchant or somebody opening a supermarket or a self-service grocery store applies in a once war-damaged area, where the planning committee still works, for a licence to sell liquor, and the application goes before the planning committee. At this stage many things happen, because the planning committees are very much concerned about the redevelopment of these areas in which certain properties, including public houses, are being pulled down—nothing to do with war damage. There are licences in suspense.
I could quote examples of these if the Parliamentary Secretary wished, for

there are plenty of them, but many of these committees insist that before any application for a new licence is granted they must try to take up one of these licences in suspense. Many of them are owned by breweries and they will not give them up. Many licences in suspense do not belong to public houses. Some have belonged to off-licensed premises which have been knocked down, and they are up for sale. But this is a very peculiar way of deciding whether a firm which wants to get into the business of selling canned beer or wine should get a licence. Why should they have to depend on whether they can buy a licence in suspense? This was never intended in the Act. There is no reference to it in the Act. These licensing committees are misusing their powers by insisting that licences in suspense must all be taken up before any new licences are granted.
Many breweries are keeping suspense licences in their pockets because they want to get public houses in these redevelopment areas later on. So the public are suffering. The opportunities for doing shopping in which the shopping includes buying canned beer, cider and bottles of wine are being denied to the people who want to do this kind of shopping. When an application for a new off-licence looks as if it might be successful, the licensing planning committee lets everybody know that the application has been put in and invites objections. Of course, the objectors turn up—the local licensed victuallers' association, the representatives of the brewers and everybody who is already engaged in the local trade.
The licensing planning committee listens to these objectors and in effect says to them, "Do you want a new competitor?" Of course, they say "No" So the licensing planning committee says, "All right, we will see that you do not have a new competitor. We will maintain the collective monopoly that you have now got." It is interesting to note, by the way, that many of the members of these licensing planning committees are Conservatives and Liberals who believe in competition—but not in this trade. There is always one body of people they do not consult—the public They do not consult the convenience of the public, the shoppers. The only people


who are consulted are the people already engaged in the trade, and if their pressure is strong enough the new licence will not be granted, however good it may be from the point of view of the public interest.

Mr. Philip N. Hocking: It is true to say that the public are entitled to give their views on the granting of a new licence. I have had experience of this.

Mr. Darling: I hope it was a satisfactory experience for the hon. Gentleman. It is very difficult to collect public opinion, to decide the view of public opinion as against the organised views of the trade that is already there. I am glad to know that sometimes public opinion does come forward and express its views.
I want to mention what I consider to be one of the worst features, and that is the way in which the licensing planning committees all too frequently reject applications to sell beer, cyder and wines —I am leaving out spirits for the moment, and I will mention why in a moment—in self-service grocery stores. Self-service, as everybody knows, is a recently developed form of shopping which has proved very convenient and popular. Obviously, it has public support. Otherwise people like the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Proudfoot) would not be doing so well as they are. Good luck to them.
Of course, housewives go in and, as the hon. Member for Cleveland can tell us better than I can, they select their weekly groceries. At this point it is a great convenience to them if they can also buy the family beer and wines, because wine drinking is becoming increasingly popular. It is a great convenience to them to buy the canned beer for the family when they buy their groceries.

Mr. Loughlin: Would my hon. Friend explain What he means by "family beer"?

Mr. Darling: If my hon. Friend would not be so impatient, I am going to explain it. Staying at home these days, looking at the television and inviting friends in for a social evening at which the family provides the beer and the wine —that is what I mean by the family beer —is the pattern of living today. I would

say that it is a desirable pattern from every point of view, especially from the point of view of those who want to see a sober, thrifty and industrious community, as I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) does. But what the licensing planning committees are saying, in effect, to these home-loving people is, "You must not buy your beer at the grocery store. You must go to the nearest public house, or, if you are lucky enough to have an off-licensed store within a convenient distance, you may go there. But you must not buy it at the grocery store where you buy your family groceries."
2.15 a.m.
This is a grave misuse of authority. The new type of grocery store, the self-service store, is admirably suited, I suggest, to the proper selling of beer and wines. I do not mention spirits because —I am sure that the hon. Member for Cleveland will agree—very few such stores want a spirit licence. The spirit trade does not fit in with the self-service business in the same way as the beer, cider and wine trade does.
It is an admirable way of conducting the trade because it is wide open. Everybody can see what is going on. There is no secrecy about it. If they wanted to do so, the police could exercise supervision over the trade without needing even to go inside the premises; they could see through the window all that was going on. It is very convenient for the customers. For the life of me, I cannot understand on what grounds of social behaviour or of public interest people should be deprived of this convenient way of buying drinks if they want to with the rest of their groceries. It is an intolerable interference with the liberty of subject and for no good purpose.
It is now clear that these licensing planning committees are redundant not only for the reasons I have given—because of the way they reject applications for off-licences which, if granted, would be in the public interest, in my opinion—but for other reasons also. The committees were originally established in 1945 to deal with the aftermath of the war, and only for five years to begin with. We still have them seventeen years later,


at a time when post-war planning, even if all the building is not up, ought to have been completed.
It is true that redevelopment not associated with the war is still going on. In my view, the licensing planning committees have wrongly got themselves involved in this sort of planning. In view of the fact that applications for new off-licences still have to go before the licensing justices if the licensing planning committees agree, it should be at that stage, before the licensing justices, that the local planning authority should have its say about whether applications should, on planning grounds, having regard to the redevelopment of the area, be granted or not. That is the stage at which the planning authority should express its view.
It is quite clear that the licensing planning committees have outlived their usefulness. Many have been discarded over the past seventeen years. It is high time that we got rid of the rest. I hope that the Government will accept the Amendment and thereby, in effect, repeal Part II of the Licensing Act, 1953, which still allows these unnecessary committees to continue.

Mr. Wilfred Proudfoot: I believe that the piece of legislation which is the subject of the Amendment is unnecessary.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

Committee counted, and, 40 Members being present—

Mr. Proudfoot: I should thank the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) for providing me with a bigger audience than I otherwise would have had.
This proposed legislation is a piece of bric-à-brac which has floated to the top of the surface of legislation once a year. If we pass it, it means that twenty years after the war we are still talking about war damage and this type of licensing planning committee. I first came across this matter a few months ago, when I discovered that people in the London area who applied for an off-licence for grocery stores and supermarkets, as encouraged to do by the Licensing Act, found that they had an extra hurdle to

jump. They first had to get licensing planning permission and then to go to the magistrates.
I would think that most licensing applications are for off-licences. If too many hurdles are put up, there is a danger that competition will be stopped instead of having more vivid competition between the people who want to sell these commodities to the public. Most of these off-licence applications probably come from existing premises, and when talking about planning one thinks mostly of the external appearance of these places.
The Licensing Act makes it almost automatic that a person with a restaurant or hotel should get a licence merely on application. Whether people with restaurants who want licences have to go through the licensing planning procedure in certain areas, I do not know. I should like my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State to explain the procedure. In addition, the Licensing Act completely changed the hours during which these commodities could be sold to the public at off-licence premises. They can now be sold during normal shop hours from 8.30 a.m. until half-past ten or eleven at night.
If one can get past the magistrates, one deserves to be able to sell these commodities. During the past year, I have been fortunate to get two licences. Standing in court, one feels like a criminal and not somebody who is applying to give a normal service to the public. One is attacked by the objectors on all kinds of grounds when trying to get a licence. As far as I can make out, the magistrates even attempt to put hurdles in the way which the House of Commons never intended. Some magistrates make it a rule that no beer or wine should be sold by self-service. Other benches permit normal self-service methods, which today are widespread, to be used.
I believe that the London County Council is one of the areas where licensing planning permission must be obtained. I am not familiar with the boundaries of the London County Council, but I know that vast areas of that council do not have bomb damage. It should be impossible from an administrative viewpoint to say that certain areas of the London County Council


need not have this type of application whilst others should.
I should like to know from my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary how many areas were originally on the list, how many remain on it and how they are taken off the list once they are on it. I urge my hon. Friend, if the Amendment is not passed, although I hope that it will be, to get rid of these provisions before March, 1964. In any case, I ask him to take the initiative into his own hands now in front of the chief Patronage Secretary, and accept our Amendment.

Mr. Pavitt: I do not want to detain the Committee much at half-past two in the morning, especially in view of the fact that I think my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) has been ably supported by the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Proud-foot) opposite in making what seemed to me a quite devastating case for this Amendment. Like the hon. Member for Cleveland, I find it rather strange that that which started out to be a temporary provision in 1945 is being perpetuated in 1962.
There are just two points I should like to follow through. I would reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend about the changing habits of a changing society. The Act, if it is continued, is an attempt to make static what has been happening in certain specified areas and gives no opportunity for growth or development or change. There have been changes in consumption; the whole consumers' world has changed since the war, since this provision was brought before the House, and it is only right that we should change it, too, and not just maintain something year after year merely because it was right in the circumstances of war damage in 1945. Like my hon. Friend, I am rather surprised that the Government are anxious to perpetuate monopoly, and do not like to see free competition arising in those areas from new shopping forms which have emerged.
I would ask the Joint Under-Secretary of State what is the position about the numbers. The question was asked by the hon. Member for Cleveland. I understand that Section 55 (4) gives the Secretary of State power to revoke an

order which makes an area specified and designated. I would be very interested to know how often since the 1953 Act was put on the Statute Book this power has been used, and how many such orders have been actually put into operation.
It would seem that, in all fairness, it is time the Act should not be renewed. I do not know whether my hon. Friend is proposing to press this Amendment to a Division, but if he does not I should think the Government would take due note of the most cogent arguments he put forward in moving it.

Mr. Robert Cooke: I should like to support the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) and to agree with very nearly everything that he said. It so happens that I have never had the pleasure of conversation with the hon. Member. I did not consult him about this Amendment, and I did not know he was going to raise the matter until I returned here at a late hour and found the debate going on.
It is a matter of considerable interest to the City of Bristol, which is a licensing planning area, and where we have mixed interests of brewers nearly all amalgamated into one, and a number of wine shippers, in which I am not disinterested, as the Committee knows, and whose activities are not confined only to the City of Bristol but extend to the United States of America. So I, too, would like to say a word or two, as a person mainly interested in that side of the question, rather than those discussed by the hon. Member for Hillsborough and the hon. Member for Cleveland (Mr. Proudfoot), because I own no supermarket, and I have campaigned here for the interests of the small shopkeepers and not those of the large ones, although I recognise they should exist side by side.
We are asked by this Bill to perpetuate these licensing planning areas. Many of these areas, in my view, are purely arbitrary in their boundaries. The one which surrounds the City of Bristol, I was amazed to find, extends widely into the countryside around and suddenly stops on a particular road. If one wants to put a "pub" on one side one has to get over the licensing committee's hurdle; if one wants to put it on the other side, which is in the county council's area, one has


to go through a procedure which is quite different. There have been a number of extremely difficult cases in the five and a half years I have been a Member for Bristol, and a number have come up to me, people from both sides making complaints, the brewers saying unfair things are said about them although they are only trying to do a good job; and the licensing planning committee, of course, has been attacked. People on the other side have said they would like to build a "pub" but have been prevented by various interests.
There was a case of a vacant site belonging to a brewery, and it was empty for eighteen years. Then at long last some private individual has got permission to build a public house on an adjacent site. But it has taken 18 years to provide the public house for the people in the locality. Any legislation which continues the difficulties which now exist should no longer remain on the Statute Book. I hope my hon. Friend will have something helpful to say in that direction.
2.30 a.m.
A great deal has been said about the off-licence. The hon. Member for Hillsborough was mostly on that point. With the growing social trend for food and drink to be sold together in the supermarket and in the licensed grocery, obviously there is no good case to be made out for preventing people buying the two together.
The subject of wines has been raised. In the view of myself and many hon. Members, it is not appropriate for wine to be sold by the bottle in the public house. The off-licence or the licensed grocery is the appropriate place because on the whole wine is consumed with food.
It should be easy for anyone of good character and with proper premises to obtain a licence to sell drink, at any rate wines and beers, though spirits may be another matter. There should be a very good reason indeed why a licence is refused, and it should not be refused just because someone else has a licence round the corner. It is in the interests of all concerned that there should be absolute freedom. Then the law of supply and demand will ensure that it all works out.
The idea that we shall have a betting shop in one place and a drink shop in

another and then another betting shop and so on, with a sort of general decay of society, is nonsense. That could not happen because of the law of supply and demand.
The Act was the result of war damage. It has been said that we are 20 years on now. This is true. I remember, when a small boy, being driven out from the centre of Bristol to the countryside, and it used to be an amusement to me to count the number of public houses on the way. I was a small boy after the days of war damage, and so I merely saw the ones still standing. There seemed to be more or less a public house to every three houses in certain parts of Bristol.
This is an indication of the enormous number of blitzed public houses which, according to these regulations, have to be taken care of. It is easy for a brewer to say that he has, perhaps, 300 barrels —I will not go into the technicalities of that at this hour—but a private individual, and not a brewer, who wants to build a public house has to go to the planning committee and tell it that he has no barrels. It is all very well to say that there shall be fair play, but many of the public houses, whether war damaged or not, would be completely uneconomical, and if one wanted to re-site some of the public houses in the city one would have to extend Bristol 50 miles in all directions. Although that method of doing it might have been all right at the beginning, it does not work now. The whole procedure seems to be completely out of date.
I would not like the Bristol Licensing Planning Committee to think that it has done wrong. It has not; nor have, the others. But they are bound to find difficulties because there are interested parties. The people who are on one side may be the type who are against drink altogether and so they will be against it; and, as hon. Members have said, brewers have their interests. With the changing social habits with regard to the purchase of alcohol in one form or another, the old regulations cannot work.
I am sorry to have detained the Committee at this late hour. I was urged by many of my hon. Friends not to take part. But I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will take note of what has been said on both sides of the Committee. Instead of this out-


of-date Act, what we really want is some good Tory principle of the law of supply and demand put to work after 20 years of out-of-date legislation.

Mr. Loughlin: I cannot help but think of the many queer bedfellows who must have combined in this Committee over the centuries, but I doubt if the Committee has ever seen such a queer lot as are combined in this debate. We have had the co-ops, a supermarket proprietor and a wine shipper, and I understand that the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Hocking), who is a builder, wants to support the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling). They are all ganging up against the brewers. I suppose this is a creation of history.
We are reaching the stage when the sale of drink in all sorts of shops is swinging from the restrictions of the past not to freedom but to licence. If I understood him correctly, the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) said that anyone of good character, provided he had the right kind of premises, should be free to sell wine.

Mr. Robert Cooke: No. The correctness of the premises could perfectly well be decided by the licensing justices. I would not deprive them of that requirement.

Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Member has qualified his statement.

Mr. Cooke: Nonsense.

Mr. Loughlin: I did not mean that in an offensive way. He has qualified it as far as I am concerned. He has explained himself more fully. He should not be so sensitive. He has been here too long for that. From the words he used, I could only construe that meaning as suggesting that anyone of good character—in the context of this debate I take that to be anyone with a shop, including the small shopkeeper—should be able to sell wine. But why restrict it to grocers? Why not have it in any shop? Why not in a fish and chip shop?

Mr. Proudfoot: That is already done.

Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Member says it is already done. I know of no case.

Mr. Proudfoot: I think there was a case in Bishop Auckland several months ago.

Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Member does not make a statement. He says "I think".

Mr. Proudfoot: I am certain of the fact. I am only doubtful as to whether the town was indeed Bishop Auckland.

Mr. Loughlin: I would want more evidence of that one.
The hon. Member for Bristol, West made a joke about betting shops. If a bookmaker is of good character and has good premises, why not let him sell wine? My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough used the tactics of I.T.A. commercial advertising. One got the picture of a family round the table drinking beer.

Mr. Darling: Why not?

Mr. Loughlin: When my hon. Friend talks about families he talks about people of varying age groups.

Mr. Darling: indicated dissent.

Mr. Loughlin: If one talks about a family, I get the picture of a man, his wife and various children of different ages. The lovely picture of catering for the family is false. This is the selling of "booze". I do not want to see in this country the sort of figures for drunkenness which apply to France precisely through this development.

Mr. Darling: There are countries other than France which have got rid of these restrictions and which are very sober. Will my hon. Friend remember that if the Amendment were passed every application for a new licence would have to go before the licensing justices and would not be granted automatically?

Mr. Loughlin: My hon. Friend can qualify it as much as he likes. I have listened not only to the words but to the tenor of the debate, and we have to consider the general pattern of what has been said. There is increasing pressure in all quarters to get an expansion of the sale of intoxicating liquor almost without restriction. I drink and I am not against drinking, but we have to have at least a degree of common sense in our approach to it.

Mr. Darling: Hear, hear.

Mr. Loughlin: This combination of co-operatives, supermarkets and wine bibbers is not a combination which I want to support.

Mr. Hocking: I am pleased to support the Amendment. It is fascinating to notice that some hon. Members opposite recognise some of the problems of the affluent society. The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) is still very much behind. He is the reactionary to the affluent society and does not recognise the trends in modern society.
I have some experience of a licensing planning committee. It operates in the City of Coventry, and many years ago it was argued that it was a satisfactory way of getting over the problems of the bombed quarters. But many of those areas have now been rebuilt, and now, as the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) said, one finds that it deals with the problems of the twilight areas in the city and is anxious to perpetuate this sort of system.
It is utterly wrong that a person can go into Leamington, which is only a matter of ten miles from Coventry, apply for and get an off-licence just by going to the licensing bench. He can do exactly the same in Rugby, again ten miles away, Nuneaton and Bedworth, while on the outskirts of Coventry, but still within the city boundary, it is impossible. Time and again I have seen a refusal which has been against the best interests of the residents of the district. This is a part of the law which has far outlived its usefulness and which should have been scrapped many years ago.
If we take note of the sort of things which happen in a modern society and of the drinking habits of the public, we will find that the public house trade is going down and that people are more interested in having a drink, of whatever beverage they like, while watching television around their hearths. This is a practice which it is well worth encouraging, because, far from increasing drunkenness, as the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West suggested it would, it ensures that those taking a drink are in their own homes and not likely to be a danger to traffic—and

can go to bed if they do not feel well, no doubt with the aid of some member of the family.

Mr. Loughlin: Mr. Loughlin rose—

Mr. Hocking: It is late and I do not want to keep the Committee for more than a moment. I hope that when my hon. Friend winds up the debate he will at least give us some hope that this section of the law which, as I have said, has outlived its usefulness and which only applies in certain districts in the country will be repealed so that the districts affected by it will be relieved of this encumbrance.

2.45 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. C. M. Woodhouse): By moving this Amendment the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) has, I recognise, done a service to the Committee and to the public interested in the licensing laws. He has, in addition, given me a distinction to which I am not entitled and which other hon. Members have wrongly followed.
I am glad to have this opportunity of replying to the debate, and I hope that I shall be able to persuade the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his Amendment. It is rather a surprising one to come from an hon. Member opposite since it would involve removing from the Statute Book legislation allowing for planning.

Mr. Darling: I think it is bad planning.

Mr. Woodhouse: I hope to show that it is good planning, which is still needed.
The Amendment would have the effect of bringing to an end on 31st March next year the provisions of Part II of the Licensing Act, 1953. This Act consolidated two previous Acts, which made special arrangements for the redistribution of licensed premises in severely bomb-damaged areas. It is perfectly natural that many hon. Members should inquire why at this stage we should be asking to continue Acts introduced sixteen and seventeen years ago as temporary Measures to deal with one of the aftermaths of the last war.
I welcome the opportunity of giving the Committee a very brief summary of the situation and an explanation of why the Measures are still necessary together


with some indication of how long we think it may be necessary to continue them. I must ask the Committee to forgive me if I have very briefly to recapitulate some facts known to hon. Members in order to establish the need for continuing this legislation.
It empowered the Home Secretary to constitute an area where there had been extensive war damage as a licensing planning area. In each of these areas a licensing planning committee was set up, composed of equal numbers of representatives appointed by the licensing justices and the local planning authority, with a chairman appointed by my right hon. Friend. Provision was also made for including in such an area, for licensing planning purposes, other areas to which a substantial transfer of population from the original area had taken place or was expected to take place—in planning parlance "overspill areas." In the area of which my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) spoke there are four or five such licensing districts in the case of Bristol.
The function of these licensing planning committees is to ensure that the number, nature and distribution of licensed premises accord with local requirements, having regard in particular to actual or proposed development. For this purpose the committees are empowered to formulate proposals for removals of licences or, with the agreement of the owners of the premises, for surrender of licences. These proposals are subject to confirmation by the Minister of Housing and Local Government, who is required to hear any objections that may be made them.
The Home Secretary is the authority empowered to bring these arrangements to an end in any area where, after consultation with the licensing planning committee, he is satisfied that there is no longer any need for this special machinery. This, I think, answers a point raised by the hon. Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt). There were originally thirty-three such areas and they include, and still include, a number of major cities, including the County of London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Liverpool. The number of areas has been reduced over the years and is now twenty-one.
In the first ten years after the passing of the Act there were no revocations; in the following five years there were five, and in the last two years there have been seven. Obviously, this planning procedure, and its winding up, has not worked as speedily as Parliament intended when passing the original Acts. Apart from the question of timing there have been complaints about the misuse or misinterpretation of the powers of these committees. One complaint has been that they have left the distribution within their areas more or less unchanged. I have a number of figures with me, but I do not want to weary the Committee by referring to them. I am sure they would convince hon. Members that this is not true.
But there have also been complaints about the grant of new licences—to which the hon. Member for Hillsborough particularly referred—and some complaints, but not many, about the veto by the licensing planning committees on the granting of new licences to hotels or restaurants. Under the new Licensing Act, 1961, we have met that complaint by providing that licensing planning authorities may no longer veto the grant of a restaurant or residential licence. I say this to show that we are not insusceptible to genuine grievances.

Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman says that there have been few complaints, but to whom does an aggrieved applicant—a person whose application has been turned down—make his complaint at this stage? He has no right of appeal to anybody.

Mr. Woodhouse: The usual way is, through his Member of Parliament, to the Home Secretary.
There is also alleged to be ill feeling due to the refusal of such committees to give a certificate of non-objection to the granting of off-licences to supermarkets and others. On the legal position, I have taken advice since the hon. Member was kind enough to give me notice of his intention to raise the question, and it is quite clear under the 1953 Act. I cannot say what were the intentions in the minds of Members of Parliament in 1945, but the law that we have to apply consists of the Acts passed by Parliament as finally framed, and there can be no doubt that those Acts cover off-licences and, equally, that if Parliament had intended to exclude them from the purview of this


legislation its only course would have been to do so explicitly in the Acts. I think that disposes of the legal question, which was removed from any possible ambiguity in the 1953 Act, as I think he recognises.
Recent complaints have risen only from the conjunction of two circumstances—first the new provision in the 1961 Licensing Act, which enabled off-licences to be open during normal shopping hours, which was not possible previously, and, secondly, the rise of the supermarket and the self-service store. The supermarket and self-service store naturally tend to be established in areas which are already reasonably well equipped with off-licence outlets. I am aware of the complaints which have been made by the Supermarket Association about decisions by the licensing justices in this matter, but so far as I know, there have not been complaints against the licensing planning committees. It is significant that these complaints against the licensing justices are not confined to licensing planning areas.
The hon. Member for Hillsborough rather gave the game away on this point by saying that he had become the spokesman of supermarkets, etc., all over the country and not merely in licensing planning areas.

Mr. Darling: I can correct the hon. Member. I was referring to licensing planning areas all over the country. I have examples which I could quote to the House in that narrow sphere.

Mr. Woodhouse: I willingly accept the correction, but I think that the hon. Member will find that he said "all over the country" unqualified.
In the one case where I have been able to make inquiry—in the County of London—I find that there have been only six cases in which the licensing planning committee has objected on planning grounds to the grant of a licence to a supermarket.

Mr. Darling: I have four or five myself, in the London area.

Mr. Woodhouse: Four or five is still less than six.

Mr. Darling: Four or five Cooperative ones—not including anybody else.

Mr. Woodhouse: I got these figures today from the County of London Licensing Planning Committee. I do not think that we can usefully argue about this at this hour in the morning.

Mr. Hocking: Is my hon. Friend aware that when a person makes advance inquiries of the planning committee and intimates that he would like to establish an off-licence shop he is invariably told by the committee that such an application would not be approved? In fact the person is discouraged from making the application, and that is the point that we are trying to make.

Mr. Woodhouse: I think that my hon. Friend will find that that point is covered in what I am about to say.
I have no details of a large number of complaints from applicants other than supermarkets and self-service stores. But I readily recognise that it is perfectly natural that people should have grievances if they are rejected. On the other hand I have no grounds for thinking that the people rejected by the committees would have obtained licensing authority had the committees not existed. They would still have had to go through the legal procedure. Apart from such understandable grievances my understanding is that the machinery has been generally recognised to have worked well. I know that that is the view of the brewers and the licensing authorities—

Mr. Darling: Oh.

Mr. Woodhouse: They are people who are entitled to their view and to quote one considerable individual authority in this House, the right hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) who told the House so in a debate two or three years ago. Nor can I see any advantage in the premature winding up of this machinery, though we intend, as soon as we practically can, to bring it to an end. There can be no advantage in abolishing it overnight. This would not simplify the process of obtaining a licence. The applicant would still have to go to two bodies to which my hon. Friend the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Proudfoot) referred, first the planning authority and then the licensing authority.

Mr. Proudfoot: Surely one does not require planning permission inside a


building yet? One has to abide by the by-laws, but one could install six bathrooms in a house without the planning authority interfering, and I cannot see why one could not have a number of shelves carrying beer and wine without being interfered with by the planning authority.

Mr. Woodhouse: I think that my hon. Friend will find that I have correctly stated the law. The applicant would have to get planning authority and the permission of the licensing authority. With the present machinery he has a body on which both authorities are represented and can exchange views instead of being out of touch with each other.
The abolition of the planning committees would not give a greater guarantee of success in obtaining a licence. Since the licensing justices could only look at each case in isolation instead of in relation to the needs of the entire neighbourhood, the public interest would be less adequately served by what would become piecemeal planning instead of comprehensive planning.
I think that it has been generally recognised that the reason for the delay in winding up these committees is essentially that redevelopment has been a more involved and lengthy process than was originally envisaged. Even after making allowances for general process of redevelopment the committees were intended as a temporary measure and the Committee has every right to ask at this stage what is meant by temporary. When the Measure was last debated my right hon. Friend the present Secretary of the Department for Technical Co-operation said he would call for a progress report and as a result we found ourselves in a position to revoke licensing planning in seven new areas in the last two years. Recently we have called for a further progress report and my right hon. Friend hopes that on the basis of that it will be possible in the next year to revoke licensing planning in something like half-a-dozen further areas.
3.0 a.m.
Some of the committees have indicated that they still need several years to complete their work. I must remind the Committee that my right hon. Friend is obliged by statute to consult them before

he revokes their planning status, but I think it is the view of the Committee and certainly one from which I would not dissent that it would be unjustifiable to continue for many years temporary Measures made for a five-year period. I am persuaded nevertheless that some areas need more time to work out plans and I hope the Committee will agree that it would not be very sensible for the sake of a few years to waste a lot of work on the part of the committees which have already rendered valuable public service at very little public cost.
It would not be right for me to enter into a binding commitment to bring these provisions to an end by a specific date, although we shall continue to revoke licensing planning in areas where it is no longer needed. We shall continue to keep the matter under review and I hope that we shall bring it to an end in the next few years. I hope that in the light of these explanations and assurances the hon. Member will wish to withdraw the Amendment.

Mr. Willey: I intervene briefly because a few hours ago I saw my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) who informed me that he would be the occupant of the Chair at 4 o'clock and I said that he could safely go to bed.
I intervene for several reasons. One is that I hope the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) will shortly occupy her place because she has given notice that after this debate she is to raise the question of unemployment in the North-East. As the Leader of the House will know, this matter has caused us the greatest anxiety.
In his absence, I complained of the right hon. Gentleman's absence. I am glad to see he is now present. I do not know whether to assume that he looked in at midnight to see that we were quite safe and is now here to keep a kindly eye on the interests of the brewers to make sure there is no back bench revolt. I must say to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Darling) that I had no idea that he would deploy such a powerful case. I am still tempted to divide the Committee on this matter, but there is some dereliction of duty in the fact that I did not inform my hon. Friends of the


nature of the case to be deployed or I doubt if some of them would have left US.
I do not think the Joint Under-Secretary has given a completely satisfactory reply. I was absolutely convinced by my hon. Friend that there is an overwhelming case here. The Joint Under-Secretary was good enough to concede that it is very doubtful whether Parliament intended this to be the effect of the legislation. I know that it does not affect the legal consequences of the legislation, but it seems that this is something which was not carefully thought about at the time when the Act was passed. As the hon. Gentleman also conceded, it was never expected that this legislation would persist for so long. If the consequences were not so direct one would not be so troubled about it, but from what has been said in the debate it seems obvious that the consequences very directly affect this particularly enterprising class of business.
I am sure that the Leader of the House would agree that it is unfortunate if one gets this lackadaisical sleeping vested interest stopping enterprise. That seems to be the position. I am not taking the opportunity to attack the brewers. I can see that if one has a vested interest one clings to it as long as one can, but if one is considering a new development—I do not want to upset my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) when he reads HANSARD to see if I have commented on what he said—but one has to recognise that people are much more accustomed nowadays to order beer and wines with their groceries. If they wish to do this, they should be allowed to do so. Otherwise they are caused inconvenience, and we should not unnecessarily cause inconvenience.
The Under-Secretary of State said that there are only 21 of these committees when previously there were 33 and that the rate of their disappearance has been accelerating. He assured us that by the time we consider this again, if we do, there will have been further progress. He said that he must consult another vested interest—the committees themselves; but I do not think that he should be too much influenced by that interest. He should consider the general convenience of the public.
Without being doctrinaire or dogmatic, I think that this is not a very good example of planning. There is no particular virtue in its persisting. I hope that we shall have something better than a good progress report when this matter comes up for discussion again. I hope that the Government will have taken a decision that this matter should be left to the licensing justices and that these areas should not be in a position in which they are discriminated against by comparison with other areas. What is good for the country is good for these areas.
If the Minister were making a powerful case, as he endeavoured to do, then he would be bound to provide this procedure for the rest of the country. He put a case that it was convenient for the applicant to appear before a committee which represented both planning and licensing. But the whole argument has been the other way, and it is that this appears to act unfairly to supermarkets, co-operatives and grocery stores in these areas. I am sure that the Leader of the House will agree that the best thing to do is to bring this type of legislation to an end as rapidly as possible.

Mr. Darling: May I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) for the tribute which he paid to the case which we have put forward? I think that it is an overwhelming case, and the Minister has not convinced me that these committees should continue. I am sure that he has noted the support on both sides of the Committee for the proposition that we should get rid of them.
But it will serve the convenience of the Committee—although I am not convinced by the Government's reply—if I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule agreed to.

Preamble agreed to.

Bill reported, without Amendment: read the Third time and passed.

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chichester-Clark.]

Adjourned accordingly at ten minutes past Three o'clock a.m.